Relief cows are milking Vidarbha farmers
The Maharashtra government claims that a huge transformation is taking place in Vidarbha;
the milk collection has risen 37 per cent. Distressed farmers, who were given the 'princely'
cows as relief, feel otherwise.
Jaideep Hardikar
does a reality check.
Is the remaking of Mumbai sustainable?
A self-styled Remaking of Mumbai Federation (ROMF) has
spun out a Rs.60,000 crore plan for redeveloping the city, which
includes housing the urban poor in skyscrapers. Experiences show
that this does not work for the poor, notwithstanding redevelopment's
own merits.
Darryl D'Monte
scrunitises ROMF's proposal.
Leading relentlessly, till the end
Prakash Kardaley's personal integrity and unflinching courage to uncover
the wrongs in society were an inspiration to his colleagues. Equally,
the RTI law for him was a weapon; he insisted that
ordinary citizens were the warriors who had to wield it.
Rasika Dhavse
pays tribute to the senior journalist who passed away on 15 July.
Mumbai sinking
Once again, India's financial capital reels under the rains of the monsoon. City residents are told that the government is too poor to tackle its
infrastructure deficit. But not only is that not true, the costs of coping with such damage are very much higher than that of providing the proper
infrastructure, writes
Darryl D'Monte.
In Maharashtra, the government loves calamities
A audit of the Maharashtra government's post-flood disaster relief
expenditure of the last two years has thrown up plenty of instances
of misuse of funds. The audit has also gone into the causes of floods
turning out to be disasters.
Himanshu Upadhyaya
has more.
A rural B-school for women
Mann Deshi Udyogini, formed by a rural women's cooperative bank in association with HSBC Bank, is a business school aims to empower rural women with
knowledge of how to run small enterprises.
Gagandeep Kaur
reports.
Bt-ing the farmers!
As the fresh sowing season starts, beleaguered cotton farmers, already steeped
in debt, are being forced to opt for the more-expensive Bt (genetically modified)
cotton. Inputs dealers in Vidarbha say that there is hardly any non-Bt hybrid variety available in the
market this year.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
Privatisation turns murkier in K East ward
A pilot privatisation effort in Mumbai's K East ward ignores the lessons from other such efforts, both in India and elsewhere. Worse still, proponents
of privatisation show little regard for public particiaption, and reject other options at the outset.
Shripad Dharmadhikary
reports.
Super-moms of suicide country
In Vidarbha, where an average one cotton farmer ends his life every six hours,
Mangalabai and Kamalabai are mothers who singularly stand out. After the
death of their husbands, they learned every thing and are raising their family
with unnoticed resilience, reports
Jaideep Hardikar.
Land titles don't come easy for farm widows
More and more land in Vidarbha has come under women's cultivation,
but pressures of culture and family economics are still strongly
against their title to land itself. But increasingly, women are
coming out to assert their rights, reports
Aparna Pallavi.
Burning down standing surgarcane crops
Farmers in Datodi village in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, turned to sugarcane
when the Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, called on the debt-ridden
cotton farmers of Vidarbha to shift to the sweet cane last year.
They are now paying the price, reports
Jaideep Hardikar.
A flawed model for water regulation
Scrutiny of the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act shows that the progressive promises of its
wording are likely to be belied. Partly this is because of fundamental flaws in its structure, but it is also partly because it reinforces the
standard World
Bank pattern of reforms, writes
Shripad Dharmadhikary.
Sugar co-ops face a downturn
Maharashtra's sugar cooperatives helped raise hundreds of thousands of farmers out of high-risk choices, and brought a measure of economic security
to the sugar belt. But over the years, big farmers have hijacked the original premise of the cooperative movement, and the region's prosperous past is
now fading.
Gagandeep Kaur
reports.
A model for sanitation for the urban poor
A systematic, participatory effort to map and understand the need for sanitation in Sangli's slums has helped Shelter Associates bring about a change
in the mindset of civic officials and residents alike. Its director, Pratima Joshi believes this is a model that can be replicated in many other
cities.
Rasika Dhavse
reports.
Cooking numbers as agri-volcano builds up
Using a deviously devised method, Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh
is claiming that 75 per cent of Vidarbha farmer suicides are not due to
indebtedness at all. Meanwhile, the toll has crossed 250 this year and is rising.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
Hope in the season of hopelessness
"This is the first year I sowed wheat on an acre of land because of availability of water in the bund along my farm," informs a three-acre farmer Vasanta Kolhe in Hatgaon village, Yavatmal district, Maharashtra.
His income will see a little improvement this year, thanks to a bund that students built.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
The tale of three widows
Savita, Sunita and Pratibha are three women from different contexts, background and age groups, yet engulfed by the continuing tragedy that plays out in Maharashtra. The number of widows is growing at a frightening speed in the cotton country.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
It's been a hard day's night
Hundreds of women in Maharashtra's Gondia district travel from small towns to the villages to earn a daily wage.
Unlike most migrants, they are footloose workers from an urban setting seeking work in the villages.
At stations along the way are labour contractors, waiting to pick up workers on the cheap.
P Sainath
reports.
Replying with bullets
After the police firing incident at Wani in Vidarbha last month, the Maharashtra government's
cotton procurement at the minimum support price rose to 20,000 quintals in four days at one
centre alone. But in weeks, it's back to the old ways, making distressed farmers wait at
market yards for days, writes
Jaideep Hardikar.
Pune's BRT stumbles at the start
While the idea of Bus Rapid Transit has merit, its implementation in Pune has created a poor first impression. Inadequate planning, lack of
enforcement of dedicated lanes for buses, and haste in rolling out the project have all been criticised, and experts find much room for
improvement.
Vinita Deshmukh
reports.
Exploring the new expressways
The idea of world class highways in India, runway smooth, takes some
getting used to. There is the Golden Quadrilateral from Delhi to Mumbai,
and then there are the 70 kms of rubble between Disa in Gujarat and
Sanchor in Rajasthan.
Dilip D'Souza
drives into the New Year weekend.
Bit by byte, IT firms make rural plans
Technology majors are keen to establish direct contact with potential customers in rural areas, and setting up computer kiosks is an important step in
this direction. These first steps are hardly catalytic, but that has not deterred the companies, which are thinking of markets far into the future.
Gagandeep Kaur
reports.
The princely cow and the crisis
Both the Maharashtra Chief Minister's and the Prime Minister's relief packages
for Vidarbha included for distribution of thousands of cows to the region's
beleagured farmers.
Jaideep Hardikar
finds out that the measure has hurt, not helped.
SEZs: Invitation to chaos?
A Marathi booklet published by the Pune-based National Centre for Advocacy Studies reveals a number of
lesser known facts about the latest controversy in Indian development - Special Economic Zones. From
land-use patterns to crony land acquisition to the stake of real estate developers in Maharashtra,
Aparna Pallavi
sums it up.
The theatre of hope
If the government thought Vidarbha's social bonds are crumbling due to the agrarian
crisis, the region's best kept cultural secret -- Jhadipatti Rangbhoomi, a five-month-long
theatre festival -- suggests that not all is wrong with the region.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
Mumbaikers mobilise for civic polls
Citizens' Roundtable, a civil society group in the city, is raising the participation of residents in the electoral process to a new plane.
Its members, many of them professionals and former insiders to urban governance, are rating the candidates and also querying them on their
plans for governance and expenditure.
Darryl D'Monte
reports.
RG/PG - new twist to land grabs
Recreation and play grounds in the nation's commercial capital may soon be handed over to 'caretakers' with liberal concessions for builders and
developers. Meanwhile, bona fide caretakers of public spaces, who've been doing the corporation's job for it for years, find new hurdles.
Darryl D'Monte
reports.
Sermons for the distressed souls
In response to the mass farmer suicides in Vidarbha, the state government is organising
spiritual and counselling sessions, even as there are no signs that the economic roots of
the crisis are being tackled.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
'Yours or mine, either is fine'
In India, paid sex fuels the spread of HIV, its skewed power equation making it impossible for women
to negotiate their own safety. Women in sex work in Mumbai now have an additional means to protect themselves the female condom.
Sumita Thapar and Akhila Sivadas
report.
The kiss of Chikungunya
With government health machinery not being of help, distress-ridden peasantry in Vidarbha
unable afford private health care are now falling victim to the Chikungunya viral fever.
This is bad news for agriculture, with crops already devastated by floods and heavy rains
recently, reports
Jaideep Hardikar.
A withering crisis
In Maharashtra, robber baron politics exists on a scale many other states cannot dream of. Here, one finds crony capitalism at its worst; two or
three parasitical and incestuous lobbies can get anything they want done. There is much the state can do differently, but then it will be not be the
Maharashtra of our times, writes
P Sainath.
Horrifying face of the dammed river
Incessant rainfall in the catchment area of the Sardar Sarovar dam, coupled with less water being allowed to flow into the Narmada main canal led to an unusual overflow in early August, despite upstream dams not recording downstream releases.
Himanshu Upadhyaya
reports on the devastation in the Narmada valley.
When death comes faster than the package
"We are confused, whom should we believe in? The finance minister says action will be taken within 48 hours against officials who do not release the credit, and the babus say they have no notification," says sixty-year-old Tatyaji Panghate at Ghonsa in Zari Jamni block of Yavatmal.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports on more suicides in Vidarbha.
Rich daddy, poor daddy
At the core of the agriculture crisis in Vidarbha are the disparities
between the western and eastern regions that the state's policies have
fostered over five decades. Starved of the funds that western region has
for long received, it now hardly matters whether Vidarbha gains the status
of statehood, notes
Jaideep Hardikar.
Nothing unscientific about it
The scientific establishment remains highly sceptical about organic methods. But Dr Tarak Kate and his
colleagues at a Wardha-based NGO
have collected data systematically, to negate the charge that this alternative is unscientific and unproven.
Darryl D'Monte
reports.
Rise of the moneylender
When the Maharashtra state government started punishing moneylenders in response to rising farmer suicides in Vidarbha,
hundreds of cotton farmers complained. "Who will give us credit now?" they asked.
Third in his series,
Jaideep Hardikar
records the deep-rooted factors for the dominance of the moneylender in Vidarbha.
Learning from Mumbai
After the serial blasts, Mumbai may soon be faced with men with metal detectors checking bags, train stations with sniffer dogs, more checks, and more suspicion. In such an atmosphere, it will be much easier to sow the seeds of dissension, difference, or division. A city united in tragedy could easily fall apart, hazards
Kalpana Sharma.
The right to dance
Can the State impose arbitrary and varying standards of vulgarity, indecency and obscenity for different sections of
society or classes of people?
Flavia Agnes
notes that the Mumbai High Court's verdict in the dance bar bans case strikes the right note.
Compact biogas plant making waves
Biogas plants are not new, but their size, relative unwieldyness
and reliance on large quantities of cattle dung have held back
their potential attractiveness for the domestic cooking sector.
That may change soon, thanks to the ingenuity of Dr Anand Karve.
Vinita Deshmukh
reports about Karve's new award-winning compact plant.
Well worth the change
Stirred by a media campaign, a team of youngsters from Pune launched an effort to help villagers avoid the scramble
for water at wells. Well-lined tanks and a simple pipeline has reduced the loss of water, and literally brought it
to villagers' doorsteps.
Vinita Deshmukh
reports.
Making motorists pay
In London, Singapore and Shanghai, high one-time car
taxes and congestion fees have been used to regulate traffic load. In Mumbai though,
despite the congestion and pollution caused by private motorised transport, road
taxes and parking fees remain very low.
Darryl D'Monte
reports.
Long distance call
We visited Barshi-Takli because we heard about a farmer who had killed
himself there, and then we found out about another farmer suicide there. We made
futile little consoling cluck-clucks with bewildered widow, then a weeping mother.
Dilip D'Souza
visited grief-stricken families in Vidarbha.
School soft drink bans mirror global concern
There is now a growing body of opinion against soft drinks in particular and fast food
in general being marketed to children through the media and directly in schools.
A number of private schools in Mumbai have already stopped sales of colas in their
canteens.
Darryl D'Monte
has more.
Walk on the road, legally
With the decision to turn an important commercial road in the city into a walking plaza on weekends, Pune is
reaping a healthier urban environment as well as a popular public space.
Vinita Deshmukh
reports that the early opposition from some quarters has given way, as more people take to the street.
Much research, but no decisive action
At least sixteen committees and panels from the National Farmers Commission
led by Professor M S Swaminathan to the Planning Commission's fact-finding-mission
led by bureaucrat Adarsh Misra came this year to Vidarbha, apparently peeved
by and concerned over the suicide crisis. Nothing has come of all this yet, notes
Jaideep Hardikar.
Rape and the media
Too many factors coincided to deliver justice speedily in the Sunil More case. But whether this will have a long-term
impact on rape cases is debatable. Unless the speed of investigation and the filing of charges becomes the norm, such
cases will remain the exception, writes
Kalpana Sharma.
The transformation of Kavthepiran village
Amongst a number of other problems, this village in Sangli district, Maharashtra, was
ridden with alcoholism and disease for over two decades. Since 2001, that began to change.
Kavthepiran made a turnaround, banned alcoholism, and won a national award for 100
per cent sanitation this year.
Vinita Deshmukh
reports.
Vehicle loan currents in turbulent Vidarbha
A two-wheeler loan bonanza is overrunning crop-loan concerns in crisis-torn
Vidarbha, where two to three farmers have been committing suicide daily.
In a land where farmers find it difficult to get institutional loans for their
crops, it seems getting loans for bikes are not.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.
Pune's draft development plan under a cloud
A Standard & Poor-controlled firm is appointed to draft Pune's city development plan (CDP) in secrecy. An iron curtain of "don't ask us questions" appears when information about the contract is asked for. And then,
the plan itself is botched up, violating the 74th Constitutional Amendment.
Sheela Barse
investigates.
Poison reaches them, government does not
Suicides by consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total
autopsies performed at a sub-district hospital in interior Vidarbha, Maharashtra.
"Pesticide could
be bought from any Krishi Kendra. But for
medicine, they've to walk miles before they could get it," says one health official.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.