-PTI Lunavada: Tribals in the eastern part of Gujarat feel that both BJP and Congress have failed to address their issues even after 52 years of formation of the state. The tribal voters spread over 12 districts of eastern Gujarat have sway over around 30 seats out of which 27 have been marked as Scheduled Tribes seats after the new delimitation orders. For the last many years, Congress has maintained its upper hand...

-Oxfam Blog As Oxfam’s two week online debate on the future of agriculture gets under way, John Ambler of Oxfam America imagines how it could all turn out right in the end. It is now 2050.  Globally, we are 9 billion strong.  Only 20% of us are directly involved in agriculture, and poor country economies have diversified.  Yet we all have enough food.  Technological innovation has played its part, but increased production...

-The Hindu A recent survey in the Sunderbans region of West Bengal reveals an alarming trend of rising mental health problem among women Everyday, when Badal, a sturdy young man of Sunderbans returns home at dusk, he finds his mother, Kamala, sitting placidly in the verandah, staring into the distance with strangely unseeing eyes. The house, otherwise, is abuzz with activity. His daughter is bringing in the cows, his sons are clamouring...

-The Economic Times The government will roll out a United Nations-assisted livelihood security programme in 10 Naxal-infested districts in a bid to tackle the growing influence of Maoist rebels. The rural development ministry, which has been spearheading the developmental approach to this Left-wing menace, has in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme worked out a five-year plan to make markets work for the poor, ensure that state governments are more responsive...

-Frontline After the year-long Jansamvad Yatra and Jansatyagraha, the Ekta Parishad has a written commitment from the Rural Development Ministry to advance land reforms.  Celebration and caution. These sentiments dominated the deliberations of senior activists of the Ekta Parishad as they gathered at Delhi’s Gandhi Peace Foundation office on October 18, one week after the organisation and the Union government had signed a 10-point agreement to advance land reforms. The agreement had...