“We do not know laws. We are not educated, but we have lived near this jungle and in this village for years,” says Chandrabhushan Mahato who was arrested by forest rangers for collecting firewood. In Dumri village of West Champaran, Bihar, most of the residents belong to the Scheduled castes...
Deocharan Manjhi, an old man in a village in Jharkhand struggles to survive but his struggle isn’t so much as physical, as much as fighting for a dignified survival. It has been many years since Manjhi has been unsuccessful in applying for the old age Pension Scheme to get his...
The cup of refreshing morning tea in front of you has a tale of rampant labour exploitation and corruption. The area of North Bengal, where tea cultivation is the primary industry, has been dealing with a gruesome wave of starvation of more than 1.1 million tea-workers due to low or...
Bholenath Pradhan committed suicide in broad daylight outside his house by consuming pesticides as his family and neighbours looked on helplessly. Pradhan was only indebted with loans worth at least Rs. 15,000 but fudging of documents of Odisha based Bansajal Cooperative Society showed loans worth Rs. 61,000 against his name....
Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) is a social welfare scheme by the Indian Government which aims at providing rural poor of India Rs. 70,000 assistance to build pucca houses instead of their thatched roof homes. Dheeran, a blind man from interiors of Madhya Pradesh was excited when he got the first...
Hiralal Sahu ended his life in October in Odisha, joining several thousands of farmers across the country in a tragic and seemingly unending saga of despair and death. Sahu, a resident of a small village in Baragada district of Odisha consumed a large dose of pesticides because he was unable...
Geeta Devi, a widow from Uttar Pradesh (UP) village has been left to fend for herself and her family since her husband died last year. Governments, central and state, have both formulated various schemes to give financial assistance to help families that are Below Poverty Line (BPL). However, welfare schemes like...
Employees of Panchayat Office promised rice and took bribes from rural families, Community Correspondent Dasarathi Behera reports from Deogarh district in Odisha. Ten indigenous tribal families are deprived of getting benefits from welfare schemes of the government in Bhatimunds hamlet. Few of them have been included in the Above Poverty...
