Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Jagan Prasad Tehriya Vs State of Uttar Pradesh dated 23/05/2025. The applicant has alleged large-scale illegal felling of green trees within the Agra district, Uttar Pradesh. The application revealed instances of illegal tree felling at Fatehabad, Sadar, Kiraoli and Agra …
NO OTHER region of India has paid a heavier price for India's industrialisation than the Damodar valley, which traverses the poor states of Bihar and West Bengal. Rich in coal resources, the region has been extensively mined for this valuable mineral, which energises domestic hearths and industrial furnaces throughout the …
IN A poverty-ridden country, particularly in the rural areas, it is legitimate to ask to what extent the public distribution system (PDS) of foodgrains acts as a security cover to the poor. The question becomes all the more important in a country such as India where the PDS involves an …
THE WIDOWS of Vrindavan -- heads shaven, white sari-clad, their devotional routine veiling the indignity of penury and starvation -- have long been an emotive subject for photographers the world over. But who are they? What does their plight say for the status of women in rural Bengal -- where …
A STUDY of meteorological records indicates drought has been a recurring problem in Pakistan"s Thar region. When it occurs now, it creates severe shortages of food, fodder and water, but such shortages never occurred during more serious droughts in the past. That"s because these shortages are the result of major …
INDIA is probably the most industrialised developing country in the world today, with more than a million trained scientists. But this has only resulted in creating a deeply divided society. The last three decades have witnessed a proliferation of institutions set up to promote rural development through science and technology. …
NUTRITIOUS biscuits made from the leaves of the fast-growing fodder tree subabul (Leucaena leucocephala) can be fed to cattle and increase milk yields, say animal husbandry and social forestry experts. Subabul, which originated in central America, is now grown widely as a fodder crop in India. Subabul biscuit production was …
PRIMARY schools with a difference have sprung up in some villages around the elite Rishi Valley School (RVS) in Andhra Pradesh. These satellite schools, started by the Rural Extension Centre (REC) of the RVS, use instruction cards, puzzles and games instead of standard text books to make education interesting. The …
A FEW YEARS ago, L Narasimharaju abandoned his M.Tech studies at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore and moved to a village. His mission? To help pass on to the people a technology to make cheap and effective cement for rural areas. Narasimharaju based himself at Ungra village …
Anna in Marathi means brother and Kishan Baburao Hazare is lovingly known as Anna Hazare in Ralegan Siddhi, the village in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district that he helped transform from poverty to plenty. Yet, though life in the village has changed, Anna continues to live in a small room in the …
In 1981, there were 181.03 million illiterate females in India. By 1991, this figure reached 197.34 million -- an increase of about 16.31 million in just one decade. And, this occurred though the literacy rate for Indian females aged seven and above increased during the same decade from 29.75 per …
ON AUGUST 9 the nation was observing the golden anniversary of the "Quit India" movement; that day, in Neralakuppe (A), a settlement of 40 Jainu-Kuruba households near the Nagarhole sanctuary in Karnataka, a different drama took place -- all the villagers fled to the jungle in fear. They were frightened …
The belief that more girls die of diseases because of neglect is not necessarily true, according to a study of measles in rural Senegal. The study suggests the severity of the disease is determined by the nature of infection and the sex of the person who transmitted it (The Lancet, …
I WONDER how many people know that practically none of the country's forest departments has any women field staff? A few women have got into the Indian Forest Service by passing the all- India entrance tests, but they belong to the elite officer cadre, and do not ordinarily interact with …
THIS ORGANISATION (Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology or CAPART) has two elements. One is to advance people's action. This is not new at all... From time immemorial our rural societies have had a very great amount of autonomy built into their functioning. Whether it was a …
DINESH Rama of Sathvadi village in Karnataka is 12, and typical of the youngsters in rural South Kanara district, who migrate in large numbers to Bangalore, Madras and even Delhi, in search of a livelihood. Long-exploited by the Shettys (landlords), Dinesh and his friends would normally have resigned themselves to …
How did you join the sangha? One day Venkates from Gramashrama came to the coir factory for a pooja. I asked him who he was. My friend Shankar was already a member and because I did not go to school, I decided to join. What do you get out of …
A study in rural Bangladesh has found victims of watery diarrhoea treated with rice-based oral rehydration solution (rice-ORS) recover faster and require fewer hospitalisations than those treated otherwise (Glimpse Newsletter, Vol 14 No 4). Rice gruel has traditionally been used to treat diarrhoea. Packaged rice-ORS and glucose-ORS were supplied to …
Conventional cooking stoves not only consume a lot of fuelwood, they also produce considerable smoke. Any village woman who uses such a stove will tell you that it's a big nuisance. Now this problem has been solved by the Bangalore-based Centre For Application of Science and Technology to Rural Areas …
THE RICH out of greed and the poor out of need have damaged the fragile ecology of the Himalayan region so extensively the eight districts in the Kumaon and Garhwal region are gripped by a water shortage and law and order is gravely endangered, with village pitted against village and …
THE TITLE promises a holistic analysis of the multi-faceted issue of child labour, but the book loses credibility because it concentrates on child labour's link with fertility. The studies relate largely to rural India and the subcontinent. Fertility-based explanations of child labour miss the crux of the problem: poverty of …
