New sand mining guidelines call for robust monitoring and sustainable development

The guidelines try to create a balance between preserving ecologically sensitive river habitats and the need for infrastructure

Spring in a box

A village in Maharashtra solves its water crisis by building underground boxes to tap spring water

Blood, sweat and tears

For RTI activists of Bihar the cost of exposing corruption is life

Civil society & politics

Water wars

Panchayat fights to retain what is left of Saligao's groundwater

The curious case of panchayats in Delhi

The Nagar Swaraj Bill will usher in decentralised governance in the city state, but what happened to rural panchayats?

People’s manifesto

Political parties reverse trend, seek people’s suggestions to draft manifesto

On a strong wicket

Perumatty panchayat's case is statutorily sound

Why only panchayats?

Other local associations can also manage watersheds effectively

Rooftop revolution

More and more people in food-deficit Kerala are taking up terrace farming to grow organic vegetables and fruits

Who dropped MESA?

Government clueless about the Bill it introduced 12 years ago to govern urban areas in tribal regions. Constitutional crisis follows

Who owns the river?

The Rajasthan government believes that it has a right over every raindrop and makes a move to demolish a water harvesting structure set up by …

Power to the people

Heads of panchayats arrived in the Capital to demand the power to effectively run the traditional self-government

Cola major gets a taste of panchayat power

A multi-billion-dollar transnational corporation has had to blink first in an eyeball-to-eyeball dispute with an obscure panchayat of Kerala. On …

Climate is changing, and the Sundarban residents can feel it

The Sundarban delta region in the Bay of Bengal, with 10,000 square kilometres of estuarine mangrove forest and 102 islands, is the world's …

Andhra in a fix over quota

Cancels local body polls as court says reservation can’t exceed 50%

Streamlining autonomy

Panchayati raj ministry suggests amendments to local governance in north-eastern states

The rift valley

With no income options, Ghangharia residents want forestland for hotels

Maharashtra forest department backtracks on forest fire guidelines

To relax rules to lure tendu contractors

Development is not a road

Machiavellian moves

Rajasthan's decision to bar illiterate people from contesting elections to panchayats is one more example of a state government dominating …

Where are rural courts?

The Gram Nyayalaya Act was passed in 2008 to make the judicial process participatory, inexpensive and accessible to rural India. But rural courts …

Giant snail invasion

People in Kerala village spend nights battling large snails that devour plants and nibble at walls  

Corporate wastelands

Tamil Nadu seems set to gift community land to corporates under the name of wasteland regeneration

The next challenge

Bureaucrats pose a threat to the process