-The Times of India It is budget time once again. Far away from the talk of lakhs and crores of rupees echoing from Parliament to television studios, a thin Adivasi teenage girl stands in a queue at her hostel, her plate in her hand, waiting for her share of the gruel that she is given for lunch every day. Her family depends on the money from the minor forest produce her...
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A rough guide to India’s Food Security Bill
Introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2011, the UPA government’s Food Security Bill is finally going to be discussed in the current (Budget) Session of Parliament. The proposed legislation is now slated to see many additional amendments from the government, following criticism from the States, NGOs and diverse stake-holders working on access to food and child health. Attempt here is to summarise in a Q & A format the...
More »CRPF adopts mascot used by Maoists to rally tribals -Rakhi Chakrabarty
-The Times of India The CRPF have adopted a tribal mascot — Gond freedom fighter Gundadhur — to connect with the people in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region. So far, Gundadhur, who led the1910 Bhumkal rebellion against the British, was a mascot of the Maoists to rally tribals in their war against the Indian state. Annual Bhumkal Divas celebrations on February 10 have often been bloodied by Maoist violence. While Maoists organized programmes...
More »Debt crushes bonded labourers in Kota’s quarries-Anumeha Yadav
-The Hindu Kota, Rajasthan: The sun is about to set over grey-brown slabs in sandstone quarries in Kota district, Rajasthan. Babulal Khairwa sits at the edge of a quarry and attentively hits a taanki, a chisel shaped like a gigantic nail, placed on the stone with a hammer. Babulal hits the stone with the hammer till it cracks in a straight line. Each 2 by 10 square feet foot slab, or...
More »A boon in the rural landscape: Data shows that the MGNREGA is doing more to create employment than many have argued recently -Neelakshi Mann, Varad Pande & Jairam Ramesh
-The Times of India Few government programmes are as debated in this country as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Introduced by the UPA government in 200 backward districts in 2006, and extended to the entire country by 2007-08, MGNREGA has become a fact of life in rural India; on an average around 25% of rural households seek employment under the scheme annually. In recent times, it has become...
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