Methodology error, intentionally manipulated data of poor quality and perilous local level political partiality is making the life of poor miserable and proved time and again that ‘any initiative for the poor tends to be a poor initiative.’ The erroneous way of assessing multi-dimensional indicators for locating the poor without making any distinction between facilities self-created by someone against facilities created through government schemes is nothing but an attempt to hide...

Conservation measures have taken away the traditional livelihoods of nomadic tribes in Karnataka. AT a short distance from the world famous monuments at Hampi is the village of Hulihaidar in the fertile region of the “rice bowl of Karnataka” in Gangavathi taluk in Koppal district. Local residents say it was an important town in the Vijayanagara empire (1336-1646 C.E.) and the seat of a local lord. Today it is home to...

Poverty is concentrated in the informal sectors of the Indian economy, with people in these occupations amongst the worst affected from the pernicious Licence Quota Raid Raj. This is illustrated by the sarkari controls that trap the livelihoods of some of our nano entrepreneurs - cycle-rickshaw owners and pullers - in a web of illegality. Cycle-rickshaws are an inexpensive mode of commute in many cities, and do not cause any...

  -PTI Experts from the University of Oxford and Indian researchers are looking into the impact of climate change policies on India's informal economy, and to diagnose ways of reducing CO2 emissions and improving jobs.  By and large the global response to climate change has ignored informal economies and yet the larger part of India's economy and almost all its jobs are informal and not directly affected by government policy, a university release...

Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...