-The Hindu Groundwater meets three quarters of the State's farming needs The Punjab State Farmers Commission recently published a draft new agriculture policy for the State that envisages substantial crop diversification from paddy and wheat staples that the State has been growing since the sixties. The draft policy, currently being debated in agriculture circles, is the first serious road map to steer Punjab's agriculture towards a new dynamic, necessitated by a sharp...

-The Hindu Dip in Congress' vote share from SCs, STs, Muslims - its traditional support base Cities are driving the anti-UPA sentiment, while marginalised communities - the Congress' traditional base - are more satisfied than dissatisfied with UPA-II's performance. These findings emerge from a CNN IBN-The Hindu-election tracker poll of 19,062 demographically representative respondents. Just 38 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with UPA-II's performance (with 22 per cent undecided), down from 49...

-NDTV A lawyer has challenged the contentious Food Security Ordinance in the Supreme Court, terming it as "illegal". The Centre's ambitious welfare programme is now a law after receiving President Pranab Mukherjee's assent on Friday; the scheme provides subsidised food to nearly 800 million or 67 per cent of the population and is being viewed as a major vote-getter in the national elections, due by May. Advocate ML Sharma today filed a...

-Tehelka.com There are few figures from the adivasi community in India who have made a bigger dent in the collective imagination of the country than Dayamani Barla. The "iron lady of Jharkhand" has been instrumental in articulating adivasi struggles against displacement and deprivation on national and international platforms. Dayamani, who was recently imprisoned in Jharkhand for her involvement in the Nagri people's movement, has won the first Ellen L Lutz Indigenous...

-The Hindu New York: Dayamani Barla was presented with the first ever Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award by Cultural Survival, an indigenous peoples' rights organisation The Big Apple is renowned as the home of investment banks, glitzy fashion shows and other 21st-century tributes to prodigious wealth accumulation. But on Thursday it played host to a powerful symbol of Indian adivasis' struggle against oppression, Jharkhand activist and journalist Dayamani Barla. On a rainy...