Neglected by conventional banks, low-income women in Satara have set one up themselves. Not long after Chetna Gala Sinha came to the drought-stricken region of Mhaswad in western Maharashtra to marry a farmer and prominent local social activist, she began putting her university degree in finance into action. Local women, she observed, were wearing themselves out in subsistence livelihood such as growing grapes or selling vegetables. In 1992, Chetna, who grew up...

River Brahmaputra has eaten more than half of Asia's largest riverine island Majuli over the last 60 years. With land disappearing, there is progressive loss of the traditional means of livelihood of its people, leading to their displacement. Some lately are migrating even as far away as Andhra Pradesh, finds out Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty after a visit. Farmer Sridhar Bora stops mid-way as he brings down his axe on a tree...

The world food system today is far too complex for common sense to understand. It raises many questions: If safe, nutritious food is a fundamental right, why are one billion people living with hunger? Why do farmers and farm workers remain starved/half-starved? Why are people in food-exporting countries living with hunger? If the value of annual global exports in agriculture products is in billions, why are agricultural labourers and farmers...

-IANS Around 1,500 villagers on Saturday laid siege to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu to demand immediate cessation of all work at the site, said an activist. " This morning, around 10 people from West Bengal came to Kudankulam and asked for directions to the plant site. When villagers enquired about their mission, they said they were labourers hired by a contractor to carry out...

The first judgment in a 2002 riots case and the SIT report on the Ishrat Jahan killing go against the Gujarat government. THE verdict in a crucial and long-running case involving a massacre and the investigation report in another case, of alleged encounter killings, both delivered in November, give hope to victims of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that they will get justice, even if delayed. In the first case, the special...