Rajasthan mine workers form cooperatives

A million opportunities lost

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

Victim of its success

MGNREGA blamed for causing labour shortage; cut in budgetary support likely

Born at 44

Odisha village gets pattas after nearly half a century. Land reform programmes get jumpstart

Mobilisation immobilised

Innovative administrator

IAS officer R Gopalakrishnan made development work for people

With IT villages

Elsewhere the bubble may have burst, but in rural India infotech is alive and kicking

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 …

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 …

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 …

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,…

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 …

A watershed plan

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

Walk the village talk

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

Saga of two villages

Sukhomajri was a dirt-poor village in Haryana. It started pulling itself out of its hole in the late 1970s, making a dizzying ascent to …

The panchayat outrage

It was a vote for self-governance, not self-determination. No panchayat election in the country ever created as much hype as that of Jammu and …

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 …

Operation Saranda: from Maoists to Miners

Tryst with rain

Following the monsoon failure of 1999-2000, two states - Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh - launched crash programmes to encourage water harvesting. An …

Between Maoists and mines

Ho tribals lose hold of Saranda as mining is set to take over the pristine sal forest. A report and photographs by Sayantan Bera

Half-way to autonomy

Decisions by Maharashtra’s top forest official can empower gram sabhas prepare plans to revive their forests, but a policy is awaited