DRDA faces axe

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

The poverty quibble

Government claims a huge drop in poverty numbers but critical indicators—health, malnutrition and wages—continue to be grim. So how …

Forests for people

Newly democratic Bhutan pushes community forestry to tackle rural poverty  

Employment guarantee scheme not in sync with Mastapur's needs

Nepal's poor carry it off

As the Himalayan country's forestry scheme for the poor reaps rich dividends, its government entrusts more degraded areas to the underprivileged. …

Question on employment guarantee scheme's success

Impotent plan?

In August 2005, the Indian Parliament passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega). The latest avatar of state-financed employment …

Bank at your doorstep

Technology is helping public sector banks find customers in rural India. This is part of the Centre’s efforts to include villages in the …

Paying farmers for ecological services

Making money through herbs in Himachal

Medicinal plants can improve the fortunes of state's rural poor

Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires

Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra's drought-prone Ahmednagar district, was sliding into an abyss after degrading its environment. But in …

WSSD: dialogue of the deaf

The needs of many were once again compromised to accommodate the demands of a powerful few. Given the alarming tilt towards self-interest and …

A million opportunities lost

The ruling alliance’s flagship rural employment programme took unprecedented strides in creating water conservation structures across the …

2006: The waterloo year

Another dismissal is possible

The politics of empty words

Scheme against jobs

Government is bent upon shrinking jobs for the poor by fundamentally changing the rural employment guarantee scheme against the advice of its …

The god of ecological things

Job half done

25 per cent funds allocated to national rural employment scheme remain unspent

Heading towards a cliff

As India elects new government, the 12th Five Year Plan may no longer be pro-poor

Agriculture Don't fix is the government's fix

Kind to Cash

A short stop motion that shows all the schemes that a human being (woman) can avil of in her lifetime.    

Drumming it in

Should local communities pay for Western notions of 'global benefit'?

At farm's hand

A complement, not a substitute

Cash transfer is effective only if basic services are in place