Beating the drought

Part I: Untapped data

Experiments with truth

It has all the elements of a slugfest among eminent personalities in the public sphere. It would have made great entertainment; only it has to do with education. Science education, actually, in village schools with poor facilities.

Politics of sanitation

Dry clean

Women strike back

For Sumani Sahu, of Orissa's coal town Talcher, the days are becoming longer. Mining has eaten away at her village, leaving but a shell behind. Fetching water and gathering firewood keep her occupied from three in the morning to late in the evening. The remaining hours in the day are spent out of home as well. Blasting dynamites might cause her house to collapse. Her husband is employed as a casual labourer in the mines.

When homemakers unite

Every once in a way, one comes across an instance that reestablishes faith in the tools of the establishment. Take the case of the Behala public interest litigation (pil), for example. About a hundred housewives from Behala, situated in the southern part of the city of Kolkata, approached the green bench of the High Court of Calcutta in February 1997.

Fast-forward to the past

The village Pokhlabeda in Patamda block near Jamshedpur is unlike most other villages in the tribal population-dominated districts of Singhbhum today. Fifteen years back, farmers here considered themselves fortunate if they harvested one healthy crop a year. Today, most farmers manage about three crops a year, and some households even harvest four to five crops a year.

A mother's love

Saalumarada Thimakka, of Hulikal village (near Kadoor, Magadi taluk, Bangalore rural district), has discovered a novel way of dealing with her inability to have a child -- a fact that causes her much anguish. She realised early on that she was not destined for motherhood, and knew she must involve herself in growing something.

When modern wisdom fails...

Bangalore's tree court was the first of its kind in the country. It was set up in 1994 at the initiative of an enthusiastic deputy conservator of forests (dcf), C Jayaram. Set up under the Karnataka Tree Preservation Act, 1976, the tree court would see trees of all shapes and sizes come to life in a wood-panelled conference room on the ninth floor of Karnataka's forest headquarters at Aranya Bhavan.

...And ancient wisdom prevails

It's Thursday, and the bell of the Miguelete Tower, outside the Cathedral of Valencia in Spain, strikes twelve. Eight figures in black robes have assembled before Apostle's gate of the Cathedral, in a midday gathering reminiscent of mediaeval times. They are the sndicos (magistrates) at the weekly meeting of 'El Tribunal de las Aguas de la Vega de Valencia' (Water Tribunal of Valencia).