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Nine more developing economies became dependent on commodity exports between 2010 and 2015, bringing the total to 91—two-thirds of all the 135 developing countries, a recently published UN report claims. Titled ‘The State of Commodity Dependence Report’, the report also shows that during the same period the value of commodity exports from developing countries increased from US$2.04 trillion to $2.55 trillion, a jump of 25 per cent. Total commodity exports: 2009-10 and 2014-15. Credit: UNCTAD Total commodity exports: 2009-10 and 2014-15. Credit: UNCTAD Out of the nine new Commodity Dependent Developing Countries (CDDCs), seven of them are from Africa and two from Asia and Oceania. Most of the CDDCs were mainly exporters of agricultural products in 2014-15, claims the report. They were followed by exporters of fuels, minerals and metals. The trend of strong commodity dependence was observed in more countries (61) in 2014-15 as compared to 2009-10 when the trend was present in 5...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims at making India open defecation-free by October 2019. The government’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) brought to forefront many success stories. But there is a flip side to this movement as well. Zafar Hussain, a 44-year-old social worker from Pratapgarh, Rajasthan was killed brutally by local civic officials after he objected to their photographing of his wife and daughter defecating in open, said the press release by Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) on June 19, 2017. With its head office in Delhi, JSA is a 'People's Health Movement' in the country, which is aimed at establishing health and equitable development through comprehensive primary health care and action on social determinants of health. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation says that till date 64 per cent of households in rural India use toilet. This means, open defecation is practised by only 36 per cent of rural households. We have fascinating stories from Himachal Pradesh, ...

JHABUA IS a dramatic story because of the three key ingredients that are missing in most government progr ammes: political will, competent and committed bureaucratic support, and people’s participation”, wrote Anil Agar wal, founder editor of Down To Earth (DTE), in 1998 after he visited the tribal district in Madhya Pradesh to witness the dramatic recovery of poor villages in the hilly area from extreme ecological degradation. It shows how poverty can be eradicated very fast and very cheaply, he noted. Nearly two decades later, DTE visits Jhabua again. At the outset, our fear was that the district might have suffered the same fate as other model villages that fell from grace after the initial enthusiasm of people and bureaucracy died down (see ‘Sukhomajri falls apart’); watershed development struc tures that transformed the water-scarce region into a water-sufficient one might have silted up. Instead, what we see is a rare example of sustained bureaucratic will and continued partic...

The Centre’s claim that people "can't have absolute right over one's body" further reinstated its absolute faith in biometric technology. Its latest defense in favour of collecting biometrics for Aadhaar came during the hearing of three petitions challenging constitutional validity of a change in law that compels people to link Aadhaar with PAN card. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi argued that the government was entitled to have details about a person's identity if it was providing facilities. But one person’s entitlement could mean disenfranchisement for others. While Rohatgi argues that recent protests over "so-called privacy and bodily intrusion" are "bogus", others seem to be asking whether privacy is indeed a fundamental right. Linking right to privacy with Article 21 The Article 21 of the Constitution says, "No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law." ...