As mentioned in a previous post, land ownership is a critical factor in determining social and economic status in rural communities. This is especially true of the dalit community, who, for the most part, don’t own their own land, and must work for meager wages as majdoors (labourers) on other people’s land. For women, in [...]

Atanu Dey writes on his blog an interesting economic analysis for the reason behind the continuing practice of farmers committing suicide. He likens the phenomenon to that of a parent repeatedly tying his child’s shoe only for it to become untied again. He had correctly identified the superficial problem: kid running around with untied shoelaces [...]

Headlines: Ten-year-old boy burnt to death A 10-year-old boy was burnt to death allegedly by five drunk members of a marriage party in Alipur village on the outskirts of the Delhi, leading to tension in the area. India might be losing USD 40 bn to employee frauds: Survey India might be losing as much as [...]

From Microcapital.org: Brought to you by students from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and the Kellogg School of Management, the fourth annual Chicago Microfinance Conference is themed: “Competition & Collaboration: Expanding the Boundaries of Microfinance.” The organizers describe the conference as a “collaborative effort…that brings [...]

On 11th March, the World Economic Forum announced the 2008 Young Global Leadership honorees. According to the WEF: This honour is bestowed each year by the World Economic Forum to recognize and acknowledge the top 200-300 young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping [...]

As an update to a previous post, “Seeds of Discontent,” InfoChange India reports that despite the recent government loan waiver package for poor farmers with less than 2 hectares of land, farmer suicides continue:  Even as the UPA government works out the nitty-gritty of the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers, announced in its 2008 Union [...]

Point of View, a sex workers’ rights media advocacy organization, in collaboration with SANGRAM, a community based organization for and by women in prostitution, have both partnered up with VAMP, a collective of women in prostitution from Sangli, Maharashtra for a play entitled “My Mother, The Gharwali, Her Maalak, His Wife.”  This is not a work [...]

According to international NGO WaterAid, India has the second worst sanitation access in the world, accounting for 43% of the world’s unserved sanitation population.  Moreover, as per a UNICEF country survey from 2004, rural areas of India are particularly lacking in sanitation infrastructure, with only 33% of villages using “adequate sanitation facilities.” The effect of inadequate sanitation facilities and [...]

Microcapital.org reports that Centurion Bank of India (CBoP) intends to unveil a platform that will enable people in the rural areas of India use banking services via text messages. For instance, if a farmer wants to purchase fertiliser, he can just send an SMS to a fertiliser dealer about his requirement. The dealer, in turn, [...]

Here is a talk conducted by the NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, Master’s in Global Public Health Program and Wagner’s Office for International Programs. It is part of the Conflict, Security and Development Series. [audio http://wagner.nyu.edu/podcasts/international/oct_25_2007_UN.mp3]