Informal Sector

Floods are an annual phenomenon in Assam. They are as integral to the state as the Brahmaputra River is, and each monsoon, we are reminded that Assam exists (or is drowning). As I write this piece, Assam is slowly recovering from the first wave of flood this monsoon.

P Sainath has been documenting stories from rural India for over three decades now. He is the founder-editor of People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), a digital archive dedicated to people whose voices and stories don't always find space in mainstream media. Sainath previously covered the rural beat at The Hindu, and his on ground reportage has drawn significant attention to the country’s farmers and the challenges they face.

Bihar and northeast India reel under floods

Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister alluded to gaon, garib and kisan as the centre of all policies of this government, while announcing a clutch of schemes aimed at the rural and urban poor. Her budget speech last week reiterated the government's commitment to ensuring piped water supply to all households in India.

Nearly 790,000 anti-drought works under MGNREGA incomplete or abandoned

India has, over the last 50 years, spent approximately $50 billion on developing water resources and another estimated $7.5 billion on drinking water, with little to show for the money (Devraj 2002). Apart from big dams and irrigation systems, the government has encouraged the digging of millions of tube wells and borewells energised by electric and diesel-driven pumps that now provide half of the country’s irrigation. Still, around 120 million people in India do not have access to safe drinking water, and about 21 percent of all communicable disease in this country are water related.

Hundreds gathered to release the Safai Karmachari Manifesto ahead of Lok Sabha elections 2019 at the Indian Social Institute, Delhi on April 4, 2019. The manifesto was released by the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), a movement for the elimination of manual scavenging and restoring the rights of the 1.2 million people who are engaged in this under completely degrading and life-threatening conditions.

Centre amends hazardous and other wastes rules 2016 to ban import of solid plastic waste

The decline in public, as well as private investment, has led to a slowdown in the growth of agriculture and allied sectors in the last five years. The crisis in the agrarian sector had intensified over the last few years. It is now the political talking point with many farmers' rallies, marches and protests being held all over the country. The good news, however, is that this year’s budget has a slew of initiatives for farmers. But will that bring relief to them?

Identify farmers for income support scheme: NITI Aayog to states