The rising demand for vegetables has opened up a money-making opportunity for small farmers. Already reeling from recurring droughts and declining productivity of staple crops, they are enthusiastically turning to these short-duration crops. In a couple of years India has become the second largest producer of vegetables. This is a green revolution the government did not sponsor. But with vegetables driving the agriculture growth, the government cannot afford to ignore it anymore. RICHARD MAHAPATRA analyses the prospects and challenges, while ALOK GUPTA reporting from Jharkhand and SAYANTAN BERA from Sikkim chronicle the transition

Proposes to redefine backward region

In the face of a rising demand for fish and a stagnating aquaculture growth, government wakes up to the potential of small fishery

Backed by three decades of water conservation measures, semi-arid Saurashtra is driving Gujarat’s agricultural growth. Will it be able to sustain it?

Budget to start process of reforming Central rural schemes, 45 years after first demand

Five years after it was implemented, the Forest Rights Act finally takes root. Communities across the country rush to claim rights over forests and their produce, particularly bamboo. But they face a double challenge: the forest bureaucracy refuses to help communities prepare forest management plans, and contractors manipulate the market for their benefit. Is this the new battle in implementation of the Act? Richard Mahapatra from Odisha and Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava from Maharashtra unfold the plot

Khap panchayats oppose marriage in same gotra to control landholdings

Economic growth didn't result in hunger reduction after 1996, says Global Hunger Index

CoP-11 has an urgent agenda: to look for money to fund new targets

In face of drought and rising food prices, attention shifts to local diet and food diversity

Around 83 million rural people still live on less than Rs 20 a day

As corruption hijacks procurement centres in Bundelkhand, farmers prefer suicide to a debt trap. Richard Mahapatra reports from Uttar Pradesh with photographer Sayantoni Palchoudhuri

No place to store seven million tonnes of procured foodgrains

States that are currently facing severe drought are the ones who have spent the least on soil conservation and water conservation

States rush in with new policies and programmes to protect village land

Rising temperature and melting Arctic ice are changing global geopolitics. Oil, natural gas, minerals and fish—there is enough of these trapped under the melting sea ice to satiate the world’s growing hunger. Receding ice caps are opening up new sea lanes, making the exploitation easier. The eight nations surrounding the Arctic Ocean are in a frenzy not to let go of even an inch of their territory. The newfound resource is also attracting distant players like India and China.

But is the melting of the Arctic as promising as it seems? It has been under permafrost for ages. No one knows how human activity will affect its pristine ecology. Scientists warn that locked in its permafrost is twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere. Freeing up of this carbon and access to more hydrocarbons will accentuate global warming, causing a domino effect. Is the world being complacent about the warnings? Richard Mahapatra finds out

District Rural Development Agency in conflict with Constitution; committee suggests its abolition

Rural affairs ministry rejects wage payment in kind under rural job scheme

Developing countries challenge US monopoly by putting up candidates for World Bank’s presidency

But will it reflect true level of poverty in the country?

The Economic Survey 2011-12 showcases the dividends of economic liberalisation started by the ruling party. But admits: growth is not possible without agriculture

Legislative scrutiny of budget in India compares with that of Afghanistan and Rwanda

Odisha village gets pattas after nearly half a century. Land reform programmes get jumpstart

Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain

Arguably, this is the hottest political summer for Delhi. Reason: friction between anti-corruption activists and the Union government over the anti-graft Lokpal Bill. It has been more than three months, but there is no sign of ebb in the confrontation. Rather, it has metamorphosed into an all-out war between the government and non- government groups. The polarisation is getting sharper. Most political parties have joined hands with the ruling alliance to oppose the “legitimacy” of non- government groups in taking part in legislative affairs. The confrontation has left many questions in its trail.

Does this reset the relationship between government and non-government organisations? Is it a battle for space between government and non-government? Why is the government adopting such an aggressive approach towards the other side? Or, have the non-government organisations strayed into the political arena?

There are no yeses or noes. The crisis is an outcome of a post-liberalisation churning taking place. In the past 20 years, the state has undergone changes and comfortably settled its relationship with the market. Government is shrinking its role in development works leaving space for non-government players. The private, for-profit companies are entering the health and education sectors through private-public partnerships. Non-government not-for-profit organisations are also rediscovering their roles.

Subjects that NGOs dealt with as “social contractors” have now gone to the Panchayati raj institutions. That is why NGOs have started reinventing themselves into groups advocating for rights and empowering legislation. But elected representatives see this as a threat to their mandate.

Richard Mahapatra, Arnab Dutta and Ruhi Kandhari analyse this transformation as India marks 20 years of liberalisation

The Polavaram dam on the Godavari could displace 400,000 people and submerge nearly 4,000 hectares of forestland. Most of the people threatened to be displaced cannot be relocated until their rights over forestland are recognised under the Forest Rights Act. How did the Andhra Pradesh government meet this immense challenge? It quietly told the Union environment and forests ministry that all claims have been settled.

The ministry gave forest clearance to the project last year. Now over 50 villages have written to the ministry, saying their forest rights have not been settled. Richard Mahapatra visited the villages and found the state had indeed lied.

Following similar complaints, the ministry had scrapped Vedanta’s proposal to mine Niyamgiri hills and withheld forest clearance to the POSCO steel plant in Odisha. Will it apply the same yardstick to Polavaram?

The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money.

But is it that simple? About 40 per cent of the poor are still not officially recognised. Richard Mahapatra finds out how cash transfer works and how ready is India for the shift in the delivery of welfare schemes

In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track development into what the state officially calls a "cut-off" region -- hills submerged by the stilled waters of huge reservoirs; a space created by administrative fiat; a gap in the collective memory of the nation; a gash in its growth -- 20,000 tribals today find themselves in an absurd situation: whereas they exist, they also don't.

Years ago, these people were among the first to come across the progress machine, only to be progressively crushed. They were among the first to have suffered the nation's birth pangs. As India celebrates the 56th year of her Independence, they seek freedom from forced remoteness

The needs of many were once again compromised to accommodate the demands of a powerful few. Given the alarming tilt towards self-interest and unilateralism by the rich, will the concerns of poor countries ever be addressed in global negotiations?

Battle of the brackets
World's biggest trade fair
"Let's put our cards on the table"

Naxalism started as a movement against land alienation. Today it has become a popular movement against natural resource alienation, particularly forests. Large areas of densely forested regions in the country are controlled by Naxalites. In these forested areas, the state and forest administration dare not enter. Naxalites use the growing alienation of tribal people against forest laws to gain ground. They secure tribal rights over non- timber forest produce and dispense quick justice -- at gunpoint. Sadly, the victims of Naxal violence are invariably the custodians of our forests -- forest guards. What is even more unfortunate is that they lose their lives defending laws that are so anti-people. Down To Earth reporters travel to these densely forested areas to discover what the Naxal rule means for forest management

It may not be possible to reject land title claims filed under Forest Rights Act in future

Legislation codifies rules for all government procurement and purchases

Centre delinks access to welfare schemes from poverty line

As bank gears up for competition, it may further dilute environmental safeguard policies

Share prices of metal and coal companies nosedive

Countries donate on condition that recipient nations buy goods from them, shows a report

This has been arrived at by applying the price level in June 2011

Planning Commission factors in less than one rupee a day as health expenditure in its affidavit to the apex court

Can this flawed measure of growth be reversed?

Odisha wants to dam surplus water downstream of Hirakud dam. But where’s the surplus?
 

As bank gears up for competition, it may further dilute environmental safeguard policies

Uncertainty looms over its $12 billion steel plant project in Odisha

Police open fire, but people resolute to weed out power plant from wetland in Andhra Pradesh

Sea water being used for the first time to cool the nuclear reactor

People in urban scheduled areas suffer as Centre fails to legislate

States want them, but not willing to spend on their salaries

Book>> Sacrificing People: Invasion of a Tribal Landscape • by Felix Padel • Orient Blackswan • Rs 395

Book COMANAGEMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES LOCAL LEARNING FOR POVERTY REDUCTION *by Stephen R Tyler* International Development Research Centre

Rich states, fewer disasters, more calamity relief fund

Now even the World Bank says money should flow to local bodies directly

Precious little achieved as states resist financial empowerment of panchayats

Survey reveals how MPs have made a thorough hash of development fund scheme

Feisty women hill broom gatherers force the forest department to relent in a Orissa village

Mired in misery, Chilika's fisherfolk continue to doggedly fight for their rights

Francis Wurtz, president of the Paris-based European United Left party, is certain that ecology is emerging as a political ideology on the left. Attending the World Parliamentary Forum, held along with the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, he spoke to RICHARD MAHAPATRA

An 'anniversary' story changes tack, a tragedy continues unabated

The centrality of the Northeast to India's ambitious national electrification plan cannot be overstated, since the region will be required to generate about 60 per cent of the total power produced through some 45 mega hydroelectricity projects. In the process, vast swathes of the area's dense forests will be submerged

In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track development into what the state officially calls a "cut-off" region -- hills submerged by the stilled waters of huge reservoirs; a space created by administrative fiat; a gap in the collective memory of the nation; a gash in its growth -- 20,000 tribals today find themselves in an absurd situation: whereas they exist, they also don't.

Years ago, these people were among the first to come across the progress machine, only to be progressively crushed. They were among the first to have suffered the nation's birth pangs. As India celebrates the 56th year of her Independence, they seek freedom from forced remoteness

On January 5, 2003 hundreds of rickshaw pullers in Hyderabad got together to declare: "Protect our right on roads."

One man's battle to save a village economy

Trees take centrestage in Himachal Pradesh

A decade after their inception, Panchayati Raj bodies are yet to be granted adequate powers

Central and state authorities fiddle while underground coalfields burn in Jharia in the state of Jharkhand

Hidden from the outside world, this is the plight of the Van Taungiyas. They were hired during the British rule as resident labourers to plant sal forests in Uttar Pradesh. Now, the government has conveniently washed its hands of them

Thailand policymakers' volte-face on community forestry bill jolts devolution process

There is euphoria in the villages which have harvested rain. Overcoming hurdles, village communities learn the first lesson in water management

Nepal's forest bureaucracy prepares for the funeral of the much-hailed community forest management programme

The Aquaculture Authority Bill makes a mockery of the Supreme Court ruling on aquaculture firms

The Andhra Pradesh government is giving forests that sustain tribal communities to the Reliance group of industries for plantations. That, too, with the help of joint forest management institutions. The reason may be more than "fund crunch"

The human cost of the cyclone in Orissa is very high. So is the cost of the damage to the environment. The failure of the state machinery in handling this crisis is only going to make matters worse. At present, chaos reigns supreme in the affected areas

With elections round the corner, the Delhi government has gone back on its decision to phase out 15-year-old commercial vehicles