Panchayat Raj Half a cheer for democracy

There is a great push to make panchayats the fulcrum of rural development in India. But 16 years after the third tier of government was created, …

Impotent plan?

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

UTTARKASHI

Houses that hold on

She walks in oblivion

Society itself doesn't care to know about headloading

Can rural Uttarakhand retain its COVID-19 returnees

Deserted villages are springing back to life as residents return due to lockdown. The state government has announced several schemes to retain …

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 …

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 …

Whose budget is it, Mr Jaitley?

Being the first full year budget of the National Democratic Alliance government, there was expectation that the finance minister's announcements …

Power the people

For the country where only 15 per cent of its population have access to electricity, Nepal has come a long way. It took 84 years to achieve power …

Aaj Ka Roadshow

Liberalisation in India has not only affected humdrum life, but also popular cultural forms. This is palpable in the changing dynamics of the big …

Perhaps yes, minister

Distressed handloom weavers seek bailout

The allocation for handloom sector was reduced to Rs 620.5 crore in 2014-15 from Rs 2,960.5 crore in 2012-13 budget

Findings of Economic Survey 2015 are cause for worry

Big engagement with small power

Generating electricity to raise economic profile

Infant deaths continue in Attappady

As advisor to prime minister visits the tribal block panchayat, activists demand special care for pregnant adivasi women

Phulmai's walk - a day in the life of a headloader

Headloaders - collectors of fuelwood in India's woodlands. On the one hand, seen as forest destroyers, on the other, they are the sole support of …

SUBSIDISED KILLING

They may survive the drought. But they cannot survive government policies. When people have to abandon their livestock, they are reduced to misery,…

A watershed plan

Recurrent droughts and floods coupled with mass poverty, chronic unemployment and pervasive malnutrition are the major challenges before India. …

World Toilet Day: India now aims to build one toilet every two seconds

The country needs to play a major role in reducing open defecation

Garbage to energy plans

The god of ecological things

Walk the village talk

After raising the political profile of village councils, government wants to downsize them

India's genome saviours

Farmers and organisations who have won government recognition this year for conserving seeds of indigenous crops and plant species

Khap panchayat bans paddy

Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district

It is not about farmers

Budget 2013 pushed up allocations for agriculture, but it will not help farmers