Madhya Pradesh accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total area under certified organic farming in the country. Though most of it is due to cotton fields, the state has an immense potential to bring even food crops under organic cultivation.   What may help the state’s cause is that agriculture is already organic by default in many tribal-dominated districts because farmers either don't have the resources to use chemical fertilizers...

In the absence of legislation to protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace, the Supreme Court in 1997 laid down guidelines in the Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan in 1997. Thirteen years later, Parliament came up with the “Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010”. However, the Bill sees sexual harassment at the workplace not as a criminal offence but as a mere civil wrong, the...

He tried to expose corruption in the implementation of MNREGA works An RTI activist who tried to expose corruption in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in Hassan district is allegedly facing a threat to his life from a government official. However, the police are yet to register the complaint lodged on December 30 by R. Mari Joseph, who is also convener of the...

-PTI   An elderly resident of Indore has alleged that her husband died in 2010 following a drug trial a government doctor conducted on him without his consent. The doctor in question, Salil Bhargava, denied that he was involved in any “illegal or unethical” drug trials. “We have carried out all the drug trials after getting due consent from the patients for which they were duly insured. We have all records with us in...

In June 1979, an innovation in the field of law and politics came about in the form of Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. The idea behind it is identifying and publicising cases of violations of fundamental rights. For the first time a session of the tribunal was held in India in November 2011. In an interview to Jyotika Sood, the secretary general of the tribunal, Gianni Tognoni, tells how it works What is...