-TheWire.in Chitrakoot (UP): In the drought-affected Basiniha village in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district, the SITuation is so bad that the villagers survive on a single roti a day. Despite this, Munni Devi was not eager to take up employment at a NREGA work SITe when an offer was recently made. There is a simple reason for Munni Devi’s reluctance – she has not yet received wages for the nearly 20 days of...

-Frontline.in An initiative focussed on Kerala’s development experience exposes a worrying trend of rising inequality and proposes a strategy for sustainable and equitable growth. THE fourth international Congress on Kerala Studies, organised by the A.K.G. Centre for Study and Research in Thiruvananthapuram on January 9-10, has generated much interest for its focus on a worrying new trend in Kerala’s development experience: rising inequality and marginalisation of large sections of people despite...

-Business Standard According to NSSO, employment surveys, women participation rates in India fell sharply after 2004-05 India ranks 120 among 131 countries on women labour participation, according to a report by International Labour Organization. Traditionally, this has been blamed on a culturally patriarchal society and rising family incomes that allow more women to stay at home. A new paper by World Bank economists blames a "jobs deficit" for the decline in female labour...

-Hindustan Times Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The contrast could not have been starker. At Hanuwantiya village of Khandwa district, the Madhya Pradesh government is celebrating Jal Mahotsav and developing the biggest water sports destination of the country in the backwaters of Indira Sagar dam. And barely 35-40 km away, farmers in several villages are facing a famine-like SITuation and staring at crop failure. Most of the farmland in the area has turned brown...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Green cover and wildlife population in Jharkhand’s sanctuaries are under threat from unchecked stone quarries, tree felling and construction work in the buffer zones of the wildlife reserves in the state. With the state government yet to send proposals to the Centre to declare 10 of the 11 wildlife sanctuaries as ecologically senSITive zones (ESZs), the threat has increased, say conversationalists and wildlife experts. Until now, only the Dalma wildlife...