Women-led and women’s rights organizations are on the frontlines of today’s humanitarian crises—but many are at risk of disappearing. As global needs rise due to conflict, climate change, and displacement, deep cuts to foreign aid are threatening organizations that provide life-saving services for women and girls. In March 2025, UN …
The bazaar or intermediate classes have remained outside the predominant research imagination on urban change. Delhi's wholesale and retail traders, the primary subjects of this paper, are a subset of this bazaar world. This paper uses a case study of the Supreme court ordered sealing drives of 2006-07 to investigate …
Landless dalits and adivasis have occupied parts of a corporate rubber plantation at Chengara in Kerala for five years. Despite being pressurised in various ways, they have held out, sticking to their demand of land for them to pursue livelihoods. None of the agreements so far reached with the state …
This article is based on a visit to Mundra taluka of Kutch district, Gujarat in January 2011 to understand first hand the plunder of common property resources. It focuses on the Mundra Port and special economic zone developed by the Adani Group and a thermal power plant of OPG Power …
The large dams being built on the rivers of the eastern Himalayas have become highly controversial. The hydropower that north-east India is expected to produce is meant almost entirely for use elsewhere. That these dams will be exclusively hydropower and not multipurpose dams and that there will be a great …
New research released by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) at the International Workshop on Gender and Forest Tenure in Asia and Collective Forest Tenure Reform in China shows that despite more understanding, more resources, and policy recommendations, women continue to be largely marginalized and ignored or exploited in community …
Papers presented at a conference held on 21 September 2011 in The Hague, the Netherlands. The symposium will serve as a platform to discuss the links between climate change, water stress, migration and conflict from a human security perspective. The discussion will revolve around capacity building and resilience in hotspots, …
The Center for Study of Science Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a not-for-profit policy research think-tank in Bangalore developed a systems' map to provide a more rigorous grounding for the scenarios. System dynamics techniques were used to understand different aspects in defining the future of India. The systems' analysis constituted several …
Controversies related to Indian trawlers crossing into Sri Lankan waters of the Palk Bay have repeatedly been the subject of newspaper headlines in both India and Sri Lanka since 1990. The first aim of this paper is to provide grass-roots insights into the post-war status of the north Sri Lankan …
Letter to Navin Kumar, Chief Secretary, Govt of Bihar from Medha Patkar on Utkal Asbestos Limited [UAL] in Vaishali, Bihar. Original Source: http://www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org/wp-content/uploads/Medha-Patkars-Letter-to-Chief-Secretary-Bihar.pdf
The Andhra Pradesh is one of the two states in the country to initiate democratic decentralisation process on the lines of Balawanta Rai Mehata Committee Report in 1959. The process of decentralisation in the state can be broadly divided into six phases. In every phase, the successive government, except during …
In the past few years the struggle on ‘commons’ has intensified around the natural resources by the subaltern people. There is a direct conflict between people whose livelihoods are dependent on these resources and the state. This conflict is getting sharper with the growing onslaught of the neo-liberal policies of …
Using nationally-representative household survey data and confidential geo-coded data on violence, we examine the linkages between conflict, food insecurity, and food price shocks in Afghanistan. Spatial mappings of the raw data reveal large variations in levels of food insecurity and conflict across the country; surprisingly, food insecurity is not higher …
The current security paradigm adopted by most governments and their defence forces is based on the premise that insecurity can be controlled through military force or containment, thus maintaining the status quo. This has been termed the ‘control paradigm’, and, while being a potentially attractive short term strategy, it is …
This publication provides a synthesis of UNHCR’s flagship publication, The State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solidarity. The book itself was produced during 2011-2012, and written from the perspective of UNHCR, drawing on experiences from the past seven years. It is divided into eight thematic chapters, which together …
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) strongly condemns the ongoing repression by the state on the peaceful protest against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu, particularly since 8 May 2012. It condemns the policy of using tactics of threat and intimidation to crush a democratic movement. (Letters)
The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 views all social and economic forms of organisation in the country as a homogeneous whole, ignoring the differences within rural areas and in tribal societies. Especially in the latter, not only is the overall perception of resources like land distinct from non-tribal …
Following three years of negotiations, members of the co-ordinating body for global food security efforts have agreed on a new set of voluntary guidelines aimed at bringing responsible governance to large-scale land acquisitions, which have become increasingly common as a result of the 2007-2008 food crisis. The Rome-based Committee on …
I received a press handout issued by southern Bastar division of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on 24 April in the evening. The news about district collector Alex Paul Menon being “kidnapped” had already become an issue of deep concern. The Maoist press release concludes with a set of …
