Media persons from all over the country have a great opportunity to witness the dance of democracy in Jaipur beginning Gandhi Jayanti. A peaceful ‘dharna’ organized by grassroots organizations like the MKSS and RTI Manch, among others, is already attracting some of India’s top writers, editors, development thinkers and civil society activists, besides thousands of common people from all across Rajasthan. The movement will continue indefinitely from October 2 onwards...

The rapid increase in urbanisation and allied infrastructure development activities are causing a shrinking of agricultural land in the Kashmir Valley. Farmers fear that this growing trend of private builders to purchase farmland for building residential colonies would lead to a devastating food crisis in that Kashmir Valley in the coming years. Though the law prevents the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, the allotment of the land for construction comes...

When a victim of trafficking is rescued, the reports often describe in detail the physical torture, the sex and the violence that was forced on her. But not where she came from, nor where she is going. Now that she has been rescued, what does life have on offer? “Trafficking is an invisible crime,” said Malini Bhattacharya, chairperson of the West Bengal women’s commission. No camera captures the moment a person...

The initiatives under the programme include gearing up to meet new challenges in climate change, Public-Private partnership projects and programmes to make more people take to agriculture as a Livelihood Looking to boost farm sector growth by more than 4%, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has chalked out a Rs2300-crore programme with focus on research and making farming a popular Livelihood option. “Now every state is coming up well in the...

A strong protagonist who overcomes all odds, a village scoundrel who takes advantage of the ignorance and naivete of the people around him, family drama Usha Rajeswari's new directorial venture has all this and more. But Shakti Pirakkudhu' (A New Strength Is Born) is not your regular Tamil feature film. The protagonist is a middle-aged woman with two kids, and the odds she surmounts are the difficulties faced by women...