In this report, ESCAP explores the future of urbanization in Asia and the Pacific, focusing on the dynamic shifts in the region’s urban landscape. It highlights the region’s demographic transformations, including population ageing, and the persistent challenges of urban poverty and inequality. The analysis covers urban areas of all sizes, …
It is heartening to hear that the Government plans to extend the relief in the form of loan waiver to all the farmers in the country. But one may ask: Why farmers only? Why not other sections of society, some of whom are suffering as much or even more. If …
Suicide by over 17,000 farmers in 2006, the latest year for which systematic official data are available, is a huge national tragedy. In fact, the trends revealed by the National Crime Records Buresu (NCRB) on farmers' suicides are appalling. While there have been ups and downs in the annual figure, …
Over 5000 labourers owing allegiance to CPM Kalgachia and Titapani local committees staged a stir on May 15 last on the premises of Rupsoi development block, Kalgachia under Barpeta district protesting against alleged corruption and anomalies by the concerned officers and employees in accomplice with a section of brokers in …
The poverty of an entity is manifest in her deprivation not only in income but also in other dimensions such as health, nutrition and sanitation. Hence, a comprehensive measure of poverty must ideally take into account the performance of an individual across multiple dimensions. Vulnerability to poverty captures the likelihood …
Often grouped along with agricultural labourers and non-farm workers, the problems faced by rural artisans are often neglected. What are these problems? What steps can be taken to improve their situation? : a report.
The report of the expert group (EG) on "Development Issues to Deal with the Causes of Discontent, Unrest and Extremism' associated with the Naxalite movement, set up by the Planning Commission two years ago, has the merit of making the relevant issues visible in an official milieu blinded by a …
More than 60 years after Independence the fate of the poor and rural people in India does not seem to be changing despite several measures initiated by governments in the states and the Centre. Lack of accurate data is one of the reasons listed for this. According to a parliamentary …
The problem of chronic hunger that afflicts around 10 million rural people in West Bengal has largely been ignored. What is the Left Front government doing to alleviate the situation? May 3-9, 2008
Congress national general secretary and MP, Rahul Gandhi has set out to know the pain of the public and to understand country's plight in villages. He has been amidst the villagers in Madhya Pradesh for last several days. He takes night halt at any poor man's residence in villages and …
On the occasion of May Day, the State's rural poor, particularly the seasonal agricultural labourers, have much to complain about the flagship employment scheme which gives the citizens the right to demand for work. The much touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) which came into effect from February 2006 …
It's like Diwali for Pramila Bai, an anganwadi worker in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. Since Saturday she has been busy whitewashing her single-storey house and doing it up, while also arranging for food and toasting freshly-plucked
Mainstreaming gender and engendering development has now become a part of feminist and development discourse. This paper is a case study of the mv Foundation, which has implemented its programme of "Empowering Women through Collective Action' in the Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh. It shows how this foundation had …
Widespread discontent among the people has plagued the Indian polity for sometime now. It has often led to unrest, sometimes of a violent nature. Over the years, statutory enactments and institutional mechanisms for addressing the various aspects of deprivation have been brought into being. But the experience has been that …
GOVINDSAMY AGORAMOORTHY In January this year I visited the Rajasthan part of the Chambal valley to study a water resources management project implemented by the ngo Sadguru Foundation. Accompanied by my local guide Sathish Mishra, I hiked along a tributary of the Chambal river, the Kali Sindh. At Bor Khedi …
I SPENT the first 12 years of my life in a poor, dusty and backward village of undivided Punjab. I still have vivid recollection of life in that village. We had no sanitation, no drinking water, no electricity, no schools, no doctors. I had to trek a long distance to …
The judgment one reaches on what the current year's Budget will do for farmers will vary depending on whether its provisions are seen as a sui generis exercise or are viewed within a longer term perspective that encompasses an awareness of the continuing and relentless drive to implement neoliberal policies …
Twelve more debt ridden farmers committed suicide in the last 24 hours in Vidharba. According to the Vidharba Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), a voluntary organisation working for the benefit of farmers in the region, among the 12 farmers who ended their lives, were four from Amravati, two each from Yavatmal, …
Two debt-ridden farmers allegedly committed suicide by hanging themselves in two separate incidents in the district, police said on Tuesday. Shrikrishna Kalamb, 48, took the extreme step on Monday, after being fed up with constant crop failure and mounting debts, according to the suicide note seized by the police.
25 Terming the Dr A K Walias Budget an election speech rather than a budget, Leader of the Opposition Jagdish Mukhi today slammed the government in this connection. Mukhi said that while the Congress decided to pitch the Budget as pro-people and pro-poor, the reality was that it "was an …
Kurseong, March 23: Some residents of Ambootia Tea Estate, 6km from here, have formed a farmers' club and tied up with Nabard in a bid to solve the unemployment problem that is plaguing the hills. The Ambootia Farmers' Club, formed on February 16, is the first of its kind in …
