Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

‘For the Indian media, the key question is one of covering mass deprivation' Time to rediscover concept of freedom of press in Marxist terms: SAShi Kumar N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, has called for “bold and radical” ways to check the ethical failings of the media. Inaugurating a seminar ‘Whither Media,' organised as part of the three-day Third International Congress on Kerala Studies, which concluded here on Monday, Mr. Ram said that...

Public outrage at the sentencing of physician and rights activist Binayak Sen continued on Tuesday, with philosopher Noam Chomsky, historian Romila Thapar and 80 others, including leading academics, writers and journalists, signing a joint statement condemning the “unbelievable savagery” of the sentence. Urging his immediate release as well as the early hearing of his appeal “with enlightened reason” by the higher judiciary, the statement said: “The damage done by this shocking...

Last fortnight, the Supreme Court agreed allegations of misappropriation of NREGS funds in Orissa are not without basis. Debabrata Mohanty tracks the scheme and the controversy it is in: FACT HUNT In May-June 2007, the Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) surveyed how an MGNREGS programme was being carried out in the 100 poorest villages of Orissa’s “hunger bowl” of KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) districts, as well as the districts of Nuapada, Nabarangpur...