-NDTV Gumla (Jharkhand): For a public hearing on the National Food Security Act in Jharkhand’s Gumla district, conducted by activists in the presence of government officials, 75-year-old Jasmati Lohrain walked over four kilometres in the searing heat. The hearing, attended by over 500 villagers in Gumla’s Bharno block, was her only chance to get government officials to hear about her problems. Ms Lohrain is a widow; her four sons died in a...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-Scroll.in Land leasing laws are negatively impacting the people they are supposed to benefit, pulling agricultural productivity down, and increasing land degradation. Nearly one-third of India is reeling under drought, evident from reports and images of distressed farmers and parched land captured in the media. The increasing unpredictability of rainfall and prolonged hot patches has severely impacted rural farmland and, consequently, the people dependent on agriculture. Drought and resultant crop loss, in...

-FirstPost.com “But this is paap”, I found myself slipping into a language I don’t normally use. We had stopped at a small village in Mahoba, and were asking people about their accessibility to subsidised food. The local ration shop owner (Kotedar) was present there, as was the food inspector – on orders from the district administration. The two evidently got along very well. Despite their best efforts to tutor everyone before...

-FirstPost.com Water, water, everywhere. That is the thought that strikes you first, as you step into the rural areas of drought-hit Latur. Branded, chilled water bottles pop out of nowhere, when you ask for some drinking water in the middle of a modest village. You notice that a familiar looking label actually hides a different, local brand underneath. Lots of households around use drinking water cans, again carrying those local brands. And...