-The Times of India RAIPUR: By adopting drip irrigation farming technique, Dantewada-based tribal woman Janki Bai has evolved from being a homemaker to a successful farmer, cultivating vegetables in 1.47 hectare of land. Janki's profit ratio increased to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 13,500 annually. Despite being a restive area in southern Bastar, Dantewada farmers fearlessly carry out their agricultural activities. Earlier Janki would produce vegetables in her kitchen garden with traditional methods...

-The Times of India RAIPUR: Adopting grafting method and other technology, a Bastar-based farmer has overcome the tribal region's airborne disease bacterial wilt, which hampered the cultivation of brinjal vegetable in this region of Chhattisgarh. Progressive farmer Ramesh Chawda now gets an yield of 1,25,000kg of brinjal from each acre of his 2.5 acres land. To make brinjal cultivation a success in this terrain, he adopted the horticulture technique of grafting the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Amendments proposed by the previous Congress-led union government to the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 had the potential of improving upon this progressive legislation. Unfortunately, with its successor pursuing different priorities, the possibility of the amendments being passed remains rather low. Kamal Nayan Choubey (kamalnayanchoubey@gmail.com) is with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. A bill for an amendment to the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas)...

-Financial Chronicle From the inner recesses of Chattisgarh to the upper crevices of Sikkim, a look at how MGNREGA initiatives are changing lives The large blackboard outside the police station reads like a rate list. There are different monetary awards for Naxalites' surrender with different weaponry, the highest, Rs 4.5 lakh, for surrender with a light machine gun, Rs 3 lakh with an AK 47, and only Rs 30,000 with a 12...

-The Hindu The deaths of Chaiti Bai and other women after a botched tubectomy in Chhattisgarh are an opportunity to reflect on the problems India faces in the pursuit of modernity and global status, especially in health and education A sudden death always has great pedagogical value. The death of Chaiti Bai, a Baiga tribal woman, following a botched tubectomy at a mass sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh recently, can improve our perspective...