Indigenous knowledge and farming practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food security and conserving biodiversity Traditional farming systems in India have received a major boost at a time when Indian agriculture is struggling to come to terms with modern technologies. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has accorded the status of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) to the traditional agricultural system being practiced...

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...

The popular impression is that starvation deaths happen mainly because the information about potential victims fails to reach authorities. But can it amount to murder if a starvation death is caused despite adequate warning? A recent Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report tells us a story of corruption and negligence leading to starvation and death in Odisha. Worse still is the fact that many more villagers await the same fate...

-The Times of India   The states would milk the Centre by arbitrarily hiking their 'minimum wages' if workers in the job guarantee scheme were to be paid by the "minimum wages Act", the Centre cautioned while appealing against a court order quashing power to fix remuneration under MGNREGA. Union rural development ministry has sought revision of the Karnataka high court order giving in to the finance ministry's pressure despite the fear...

The Union government has tabled two bills in the Lok Sabha in the last week of the winter session. Since one of them is the lok pal bill, it has hijacked virtually all the public attention. This is a pity for two reasons. First, there is considerable doubt whether the lok pal bill — in any form — can really be the magic solution that Team Anna would like us...