If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...

Endosulfan, the pesticide which is widely believed to be responsible for thousands of deaths, diseases and devastation, was able to save its own life largely because of India’s questionable efforts at global forums. The controversial pesticide has been in news for a long time because of its harmful effects on humans, wild life and the environment. Obviously the $100 million industry is going out of the way to defend the...

We hear that endosulfan is banned globally and it is against Indian interests and that the European Union and the corporates are behind it. India is a big country and we do not know what happens in one area of the country or how New Delhi is responding to that. So let me try to walk you on this issue. I went to Kasargod as team member of Thanal, a...

Haryana records the lowest adult sex ratio in the country, and its Jhajjar district has the worst adult and child sex ratios. THE results of the provisional Census revealed that Haryana as a whole registered the lowest adult sex ratio in the country and also had the lowest child sex ratio (CSR). Among the State's districts, Jhajjar recorded the lowest adult as well as child sex ratio, and within the district,...

They have all been killed quietly, leaving Devda just with 20 girls compared to 300 boys Avon Kanwar lives in fear. She is scared her food may be poisoned. She is afraid to sleep at night because she suspects she may be strangled. Avon, eight years old, is convinced her parents will kill her. “I don’t know where she hears such things,”says her father Sangh Singh, “We stopped killing girls...