Lack of clarity over legal requirements, shoddy implementation and selective approvals have made it extremely difficult for poorer communities to build or maintain their houses in coastal zones. Vinod Patgar describes the situation based on his experience in Karnataka.

Soumik Dutta writes about how Limbu-Tamang tribal seat reservation in the Sikkim legislative assembly could change the political scenario in Sikkim.

An India Together interview with Nirmalatai Purandare, of the Vanasthali Rural Development Centre.

From water-harvesting to science education to agriculture, Vidnyanvahini's all-round efforts create vibrant communities, and inspire others to pursue similar paths.

Rasika Dhavse profiles the Disability Network

Geeta Seshu reports on a recent study that recently looked at decreasing funding for women specific schemes.

The government claims to provide equal opportunities for women, but the traditional power structure and corruption usually ensure the opposite. Aparna Pallavi reports from Ramtek, Maharashtra.

Servicing the market borrowings of the Sardar Sarovar Nigam Ltd is a deadly game where the social sector expenditure of the state is held hostage. Himanshu Upadhyaya digs deeper.

Nirmala Lathi has devised a method of vermiculture that enables plants to grow healthily using properly treated organic waste. Rasika Dhavse reports.

Why does meaningful resettlement for Narmada dam oustees in Maharashtra remain slow despite a state cabinet show of willingness in January 2004? An India Together report.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the BSP devastated the Congress-NCP alliance. In the Maharashtra elections, the Sonia Gandhi factor appears to have bailed the Congress out of big trouble. But this time, the BSP wrecked the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in many places, notes P Sainath.

Offer to build 320,000 houses for slum-dwellers. Deliver only 1146. In two years, only a tiny fraction of the number of houses a Maharashtra government plan called for actually got built. Dilip D'Souza dissects an infamous cross-subsidy fiasco that was born as an election promise.

A round table gathering of citizens and planners has identified ways to improve the city's transportation services. If successful, this initiative could serve as a model for active participation by residents in solving a problem every metropolitan area faces. Pankaj Sekhsaria reports.

Municipalities are outsourcing city waste collection to private contractors. As a result, rag-pickers face a loss of their livelihood, unless the informal sector itself is institutionalised within the hierarchy of solid waste management. Surekha Sule reports.

The “simple man” silently walked out of his hut that fateful day, went to the backyard and consumed pesticide in the veil of darkness. Rising family debt had forced his children out of school, and that proved the last straw. Jaideep Hardikar recounts the stories of this and two other farmer suicides.

The Maharashtra State Cotton Growers’ Marketing Federation was originally setup to procure cotton from growers at reasonable prices and sell it to mills and traders. Instead, with government policies not helping, it has trapped itself and farmers in a vicious cycle of debt and losses, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

Last year saw Maharashtra go to the polls and the incumbent government offer freebies to farmers. But cotton growers in Vidarbha saw their problems only worsen as they entered 2005. None of the political parties seem interested in a real way out, finds Jaideep Hardikar.

Not least because affordable rental housing in Bombay is an urban myth, the jobs we invite our fellow Indians to fill so that we can have all those good things of a booming economy, are filled by people who have little choice but to live in slums. And then we raze those slum homes. Cavalier, says Dilip D'Souza.

We need to put aside our obsession with becoming "world class". Let us make our cities liveable for all the people, says Kalpana Sharma.

Property prices have gone up over the decades, but Mumbai leases land to private interests at rates as low as Rs.7 per sq.m. In the last three years alone, revenue authorities have on average lost close to Rs.48 crores, estimates Shailesh Gandhi.

The World Bank continues to push its agenda on water privatisation even though its much-heralded examples from recent years turned out to be such dismal failures. The result will destroy countless small farmers and hand over agriculture to the rich and corporations, says P Sainath.

Thousands of cotton farmers in Maharashtra are due money from the state's procurement agency -- the marketing federation -- for the 2004-5 season. Though officials maintain that they have released payments, farmers are not getting money from the banks. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

Should farmers sow early? Or wait to be sure that the first rains aren't just temporary? Should they borrow early, or wait until they are absolutely ready to sow, even if it means higher risks later? P Sainath finds that in Vidharbha, farming itself is a great gamble, with many victims.

Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of water parks and amusement centres. The iron laws of rural life don't apply in the entertainment complexes built right next to the poor. In a region that scarcely receives adequate water to meet people's drinking needs, there is plenty of water for the playgrounds of the rich, finds P Sainath.

What does it say about our priorities when a rescue team trying to get help to victims of a landslide has to destroy other homes to reach them? Citizens might be resilient during natural disasters, but this isn't spirit; to find that we have to look elsewhere, and at other times, says Dilip D'Souza.

Farmers weighed down by debt are now falling prey to land grab by an array of predators that includes talatis and school teachers. A "proper" deed of sale is the preferred method. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

Fake and costly inputs have placed lakhs of farmers in grave danger. Further, despair has led many to embrace costly Bt cotton as some kind of magic bullet. Meanwhile, Bt cotton has not only been attacked by other pests, it's been struck by the bollworm itself. For many, the results could be deadly, writes P Sainath.

In the three days the National Commission on Farmers team toured Vidharbha, there were six suicides. In Panderkauda, the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's hospital the same day the team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

The National Commission on Farmers team, the public at large, and even sections of the media have signalled the crisis, its causes and its appalling human toll. Failure to intervene in Vidharbha now has no excuses at all. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

Harvesting water in the lower elevations is easier, because a lot of it gathers there, but this may be too late and too little. Not only do those in higher reaches suffer without water, additionally valuable topsoil is washed away if no percolation takes place at higher levels. Surekha Sule reports from Marathwada.

Ten months after his father ended his life, Madhav toils from 6 am to 8 pm to herd the cattle of a big farmer for a paltry Rs 20 a day. Education? Forget it. In village after Vidarbha village where farmers have committed suicide, children have eventually dropped out of schools to take up the plough and work like beasts of burden, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

"This building is dangerous. It may collapse at any time. Enter at your own risk." So goes a warning sign at the entrance to a building in Mumbai. Buildings that crumble are an old tradition in this city, with at least one cause being the Rent Control Act. Dilip D'Souza says the pernicious law must go.

Maharashtra's latest step towards water management has raised a large controversy, pitting strong views against one another. But lost amidst the arguments is an important fact - the solutions for our water crises are not going to be easy, because we've left ourselves very few options. M Rajshekhar reports.

While the sheer scale of the flooding in Mumbai last year made relief operations difficult, there was still much that the government could have done, but failed to do. The citizens themselves, were far more resourceful and sensitive to the plight of others, writes Darryl D'Monte, who served on the Concerned Citizens' Commission.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.