Your gods are mine

When patdehri (chief priest) Halu Thanapati, 68, gets possessed, he hastily dives into the badan khaal—the yoni of Goddess Duarseni, the supreme deity of his tribe—as though to suck the rare wisdom that ensures ‘existence’ on earth.

Green could go red

GREEN lingo has by now infiltrated In dia’s economic policy circles. In his pre-budget speech, Prime Minister Manmo han Singh hinted it was time India’s industrialization took the low-carbon path.

Letters

Change approach to Naxalism This is in response to the editorial ‘Bullets are not the answer to development’ (April 16-30, 2010). On my first job in Dumka (now in Jharkhand) in 1974, I was shocked to see the condition of the tribals. All the wealth in the area was in the hands of a few business families who were migrants.

Fire in Mundka scrap market

two incidents of fire in April ruined traders of the plastic scrap market in Mundka village in Delhi’s outskirts. While waste pickers search heaps of burnt plastic for metal scraps they can sell to buy a meal, the land owners in Mundka are hoping for better times. The plastic scrap market, possibly the largest in India, is likely to shift, which means they can get higher rentals. Mundka is now connected by metro rail and land prices have started spiralling.

1,300 villages, common agenda

villagers of Betul district in Madhya Pradesh have taken the first step to reclaim community-owned forestland taken away by the government after independence.

News 360° - Briefs

land reform South Africa eyes Africa

How cheap?

WILDLIFE conservationists use the crite - rion of species diversity to identify areas that must be protected. Ecologists and zoologists from the Universidade Federal de Gois, Brazil, proposed a new model that included the economic cost of acquiring land as an important criterion. This matters as limited funds are available for conservation projects. The model identified 41 ecoregions which are the most suited for conservation. The species in these regions live under a high risk of extinction. At the

News 360° - Briefs

land rights Peru appeases Amazonians Peru's Congress abolished two decrees by President Alan Garcia that were aimed at opening large areas of the Peruvian Amazon to oil and gas exploration activities, logging and dams.

Four murders and a power plant

Land purchase deals amid gunshots in Jharkhand village

Land yields much more than crops

Its ecological services are only begining to be counted At one point in Rabindranath Tagore's poem Dui Bigha Jomi, the narrator returns home to his village. It's a brief visit. His meagre landholding has been taken away by the zamindar. Our hero pines for his land, the shade of the trees, the smell of the soil, the cool breeze.