Madvi Madka owns 4ha of land in Chingavaram in the Sukum block in central India. The district in which the block is located has become infamous after 6 April, killing of 76 policemen by the Maoists. This is the ground zero of the war between the Indian state and the Maoists, and Madka, who owns 4ha of land—often left fallow because there wasn’t enough water for irrigation—here used to make...

If you want to understand why the Maoists grow stronger, watch frail Shyam Charan Kisku, 5, as he keeps hunger away by nibbling at a wild berry called Kendu on a hot April afternoon. Kisku and 40-odd children in this scraggly village of mud-and-thatch homes, 180km south-east of Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi, did not get their free lunch this day under the national mid-day meal scheme, the world’s largest cooked-meal programme. Kisku’s mother,...

Last summer, about 150 families of Kachan village in Jharkhand’s Palamu district decided to pool funds to repair their only community tube well. A drought, the worst in many years, had dried up two ponds; there were no wells around; and the tube well had been dysfunctional for a year. It took a lot of hardship and one whole month for them to put together what the mechanic had asked...

Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is often feted for development work. But it seems the progress has not reached the remote, rural areas of the state — certainly not the tribal district of Jhabua. At least 46 children have reportedly died of malnutrition and starvation in the district since last October. But the authorities refuse to even acknowledge the problem, let alone take any action. Most of the deaths have been...

THE sharp criticism of the State administration by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for perceived inadequacies in enforcing the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and in implementing various welfare measures aimed at empowering Dalits has put the Tamil Nadu government in a tight spot. Despite denials by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who is also a top leader of the United Progressive Alliance which is...