Living with Hunger: Deprivation amongst the Aged, Single Women, and People with Disability

Harsh Mander

EPW, 2008

The enormity of human deprivation among the vulnerable and destitute is overwhelming. This paper describes the experience of living with hunger as recounted by persons from intensely insecure social groups from eight villages in Orissa, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Although the state has reached people in remote locations occasionally making a crucial difference in the lives of the destitute, this intervention is usually meager, uncertain and ridden with corruption. However, the grim stories described here are illuminated by dignity, courage and resilience.

Exclusion and Expulsion in Agriculture

Sandeep Chachra, Amanpreet Kaur and Dr P. Raghu*

Agriculture and production of food has been
the fundamental premise of growth of all known civilizations. In fact, agriculture presents itself as a home for the majority of human labour, even to this day. As per the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in 2010, about 2.6 billion people around the world were dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods either as actively engaged workers or as dependants, while about half of the world’s population lived in rural areas and of these, about three-quarters were estimated to be living in agricultural households