EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE
NREGA: A fine balance
The employment guarantee in rural areas is having multiple and layered effects. With better wages, the bargaining power of the weakest has gone up a notch.
Employment | Andhra Pradesh
July 2008

EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE
NREGA hits buses to Mumbai
The rural employment guarantee programme is life-saving. This time round, the poor have slightly more money than they did earlier. But all prices are up.
Employment | Andhra Pradesh
July 2008

FERTILIZER SHORTAGES
From market yard to police yard
Fertilizer shortages have sparked unrest across large swathes of rural Maharashtra and other States as well. In Washim, every constable and officer is deployed right within the police compound, distributing fertilizer.
Maharashtra | Agriculture
June 2008

ANDHRA PRADESH BY-ELECTIONS
Jadcherla 13 draw votes from the main parties
In Jadcherla, 13 candidates fought the same Assembly seat but contested for, not against one another.
Andhra Pradesh
June 2008

OPINION
They lock on to the NREGA
The complaints are many and often justified. People are sometimes exasperated by the way the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme works. But there is unanimity on its worth and value.
Poverty | Andhra Pradesh
May 2008

OPINION
Of loan waivers and tax waivers
An overwhelming majority of Vidharbha's farmers do not gain from the farm loan waiver because they are too 'big.' But the IPL waiver goes to some of India's richest millionaires and billionaires. They aren't too big.
Agriculture | Public funds
May 2008

GLOBALISATION
Between a rock and a hard place
The nations that taught us that state meddling in economic matters was blasphemy are now nationalising banks, bailing out brigands, and pouring in funds to stop factories from closing down. But a few true believers are still holding out, against all the evidence.
Agriculture
April 2008

OPINION
Oh! What a lovely waiver
The UPA government's waiver of farm loans that was announced in the Union budget is no solution to even the immediate crisis let alone long-term agrarian problems. Nothing in this budget will raise farm incomes.
Agriculture
March 2008

OPINION
The glory days of the Raj?
As more and more people pour out of the villages, voting with their feet against the distress in the countryside, the base the Sena built within Mumbai's own dispossessed and migrants of Marathi background is now under contest. It's a larger canvas that won't go away, arrest or no arrest.
February 2008

OPINION
Discrimination for dummies: V 2008
Increasingly, job quotas are cited as 'discrimination' - in reverse. But the word discrimination in terms of caste means something very different that the media mostly do not, or choose not to, understand.
Caste
January 2008

OPINION
India 2007: High growth, low development
Even nations that are far below us in the Human Development Index rankings - and which have nothing like our growth numbers - have done much better than us on many counts. December 2007

FARMER SUICIDES
1.5 lakh farm suicides in 1997-2005
Close to 150,000 Indian farmers committed suicide in nine years from 1997 to 2005, official data show. While farm suicides have occurred in many States, nearly two thirds of these deaths are concentrated in five States, writes P Sainath.
Part Two | Three | Four
November 2007

OPINION
Indexing inhumanity, Indian style
It took minutes for the top guns to swing into action when the Sensex fell by several hundred points. But no Minister came forward to calm the nation when India hit the 94th rank in the Global Hunger Index.
Hunger
November 2007

OPINION
'Incredible India' right here at home
The week-long 'Incredible India' campaign in New York aimed at boosting the vibrant image of an emerging, powerful India at 60 and showcasing its diversity. But the real action was at home. Incredible India will also, at some late and brief point, make its impact on the media.
October 2007

FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Nine decades of non-violence
Countless rural Indians sacrificed much for India's freedom, to fade into oblivion later, seeking neither reward nor recognition. Gandhian Baji Mohammed, who has been active for 70 years in one or the other cause, is amongst the last of this dying tribe.
September 2007

FREEDOM FIGHTERS
The last battle of Laxmi Panda
Countless ordinary Indians sacrificed much for Independence without a thought of reward. Much of that generation has died out. Most others are very old, and several are ailing or otherwise in distress. Many in rural India, like Laxmi Panda, have lost much and gained little.
August 2007

INTERVIEW
"Invisible India is the elephant in your bedroom"
His intelligent and insightful views on agriculture, caste, media and other matters have been greatly appreciated by countless readers over the years. An India Together conversation with P Sainath, who has just won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism.
Interviews | Citation | Indian Magsaysay winners

VIDARBHA
Vidarbha's one-litre-per-cow package
By the Maharashtra government's own count, the 14,221 high-breed cows it gave farmers in Vidarbha add just 1.16 litres each to the milk collection in the region. These cows have cost already indebted farmers over Rs.7.5 crore.
July 2007

ANDHRA PRADESH
Weaving a life in Anantapur
Families left behind by farmers who committed suicide face up to the odds, fighting for the next generation. "It is all for the children, sir. Our time has gone".
July 2007

OPINION: INEQUALITY
CEOs and the wealth of notions
Gross inequality does far more than breed resentment. It destroys millions of lives, devastates the access of the poor to basic needs, dehumanises both its victims and its votaries, and undermines democracy itself.
June 2007

ANDHRA PRADESH
Unwilling parents, unwary orphans
In Anantapur, farm suicides are fewer than they were in 2002. But they still happen and could rise again in this fragile region. As elsewhere, agriculture is plagued by uncertainty.
June 2007

VIDARBHA
In Yavatmal, life goes on
Yavatmal, where President Abdul Kalam's main function is, remains one of the most dismal parts of Vidharbha, the region hardest hit by the farm crisis.
June 2007

AGRICULTURAL CRISIS
Farmer's diet worse than a convict's
Several women in Karnataka's Mandya district like Jayalakshmamma, whose husband committed suicide four years ago, still stand up to the unending pressure with incredible resilience.
May 2007

FARMING WIDOWS
Farming: It's what they do
The agrarian crisis has seen over a lakh of women farmers lose their husbands. But survivors like Kalavati Bandurkar - with seven daughters - still run their farms.
May 2007

FARM WIDOWS
Suicides are about the living, not the dead
In society's eyes, Kamlabai is a `widow.' In her own, she's a small farmer trying to make a living and support her family. She is also one of about one lakh women across the country who've lost their husbands to farm suicides since the 1990s.
May 2007

EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE
No place for single women
Once, Andhra Pradesh's top leaders queued up at Bandi Lachmamma's home with promises. The debate on farm suicides hit the headlines when her husband took his life. Years later, she works as a coolie in Anantapur earning much less than the minimum assured by the NREGP - which turns away single women.
Andhra Pradesh | Women | Poverty
May 2007

FARMING CRISIS
Jailhouse talk a fate worse than debt
After a lull of some years, farmers are being jailed for debt in Andhra Pradesh. Even those in drought-hit districts who cannot repay their loans. Farm unions see the banks as driving a dangerous and explosive process which lets off crorepati defaulters but jails bankrupt farmers owing a few thousand rupees.
Andhra Pradesh
May 2007

OPINION: CRICKET
And now, for a commercial break
Knowing that big money is undermining the game as a whole, and pussyfooting around it, just isn't cricket
April 2007

OPINION / BUDGET
Growth ideology of the cancer cell
In that the trend of falling state investment in sector after sector continues, this budget does not break with neo-liberalism. Instead, it just dolls it up. India is still on a path damaging and dangerous to the poor. The UPA has learned nothing and forgotten everything.
March 2007

REVERSE MIGRATION
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.
Employment
February 2007

OPINION
When even Pax Romana seems gentler
Remember how keen so many of our national security experts were on sending our own troops into Iraq alongside those of the U.S.? Remember it was to have been such a good thing for India?
January 2007

THEATRE in VIDARBHA
And all the world's a stage
While theatre struggles to survive in the metros, it thrives in Vidharbha where it draws audiences of thousands for plays that go on through much of the night.
January 2007

WOMEN IN THE FOREST SERVICE
A forest road less travelled
Eleven young women in Maharashtra have chosen to become Foresters. These women Foresters are mostly from rural Maharashtra. From places such as Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, and Yavatmal and not from the big cities.
January 2007

OPINION / ELECTIONS
Elite activism: can't vote, can vet
The Beautiful People whose next-door neighbours never vote are back, teaching the masses - who do vote - how to go about it in the civic elections in Mumbai. This is the upper middle class trying to preen itself in the one process where they matter less.
Elections
January 2007

AMBEDKAR ANNIVERSARY
The fear of democracy
In the English media, the 50th Ambedkar anniversary rated at best as a traffic problem. At worst, as a potential nightmare. There was not even a pretence of interest in the person. But this is a time to remember that the larger society ignores or distorts the Dalits' struggle for their rights at its own risk.
Caste
December 2006

INEQUALITY
Shangri-La and sub-Saharan Africa
Sure, we have this crouching tiger economy. But life expectancy here is less than it is in Bolivia, Honduras or Tajikistan. Per capita GDP ranks below that of Nicaragua, Indonesia or Guatemala. And the inequality we so strongly pursue breeds its own mindset.
November 2006

OPINION
Three 9/11s, choose your own
There were three 9/11s in history. The New York one of 2001. The neo-liberal one of Chile 1973, and the non-violent one of 1906 - Gandhiji's satyagraha in South Africa. The authors of all three tried to change the world, but only the Mahatma's Weapon of Mass Disobedience helped change the world for the better.
September 2006

OPINION
What the heart does not feel, ...
After 15 years of a battering from hostile policies and governments, the world of the peasant has turned highly fragile. But the onus of changing is on the farmer. Not on those driving a cruel process and system, who have only contempt for ordinary folk.
Farmers' suicides
September 2006

OPINION
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.
Farmers' suicides | Maharashtra
September 2006

OPINION: PRIVATISATION OF WATER
Thirst for profit
People pay more for water than corporates do; in many parts of the country soft-drink giants get it almost free. Whole communities lose out as heavyweights like Coke step in. The corporate hijack of water is on and if the current trend continues, India's water sources will be in private hands before long.
Water
May 2006

OPINION
India Shining meets the Great Depression
In the villages, we demolish their lives, and in the city their homes. The smug indifference of the elite is matched by the governments they do not vote in, but control. P Sainath contrasts the tongue-lolling coverage of the Beautiful People with the studied indifference to the plight of millions.
Media | Farm suicides
April 2006

PRIVATISATION OF WATER
Privatisation, come hell or high water
Converting water to a commercial good to be sold for profit invites disaster. Most of all for poor people whose already pathetic access to water will shrink swiftly.
Water
March 2006

PUBLIC HEALTH EXPENDITURE
The health of nations
India needs a strong public health system, but our direction is the opposite. Public spending on health is a mere 0.9% of GDP, and medical care is now the second most common cause of rural family debt. Public ill health, private profit - that's the partnership we are forging, writes P Sainath.
Public health
January 2006

NSSO ASSESSMENT OF FARMERS
Falling farm incomes, growing inequities
When many households spend less than Rs.225 a month per person, you really need to think of how people live. On what it is that they live. What can you spend on if the most you can spend is, on average, Rs.8 a day? And if close to 80 per cent of what you spend is on food, clothing and footwear, what else could you possibly buy?
Poverty
November 2005

REMEMBERING K R NARAYANAN
Compassion at the top
While editors and columnists sang hosannas to the brave new world, the resident of Rashtrapati Bhavan showed he had not lost his connection with ordinary people. P Sainath remembers former President K R Narayanan, who passed away this week.
November 2005