A Fistful of Dry Rice : Land Equity and Democracy: Essays in Honour of D. Bandyopadhyay

Contents Preface I Land 1 Land tenure security and rural development in Asian countriesT Haque 2 Equity and lad reforms in the context of the agrarian crisis in India the need to defeat diversionary trendsVikas Bajpai and Anoop Saraya 3 Tenancy in India emerging trends pattern and issuesManoj Ahuja 4 Development policy and social exclusion access of Dalits and Adivasis to common property resourcesKB Saxena 5 Land reforms evidences of reversal in OrissaBK Sinha 6 Roots of agrarian discontent in the Kaimur region of Uttar PradeshK Gopal Iyer 7 Debu--the man and his work significance and ramifications--with particular reference to Operation BargaPS Krishnan II Equity 8 Unbroken history of broken promises with special reference to bastarBD Sharma 9 Bondage to freedomBN Yugandhar 10 Law and practice of untouchability and manual scavenging in IndiaSR Sankaran 11 Debuda Halis of Delanpore then and nowLakshmidhar Mishra 12 Economic and social backwardness of Uttar Pradesh and BiharNJ Kurian and Prashant Kumar Trivedi 13 A note on the neo-liberal threat to the survival of AdivasisSP Shukla 14 A course change the only way forwardSuhas Borker III Democracy 15 Two faces of the Indian state Kalahandi to Kalinganagar and Operation Barga to LalgarhManoranjan Mohanty 16 State response to Maoist violence a critical assessmentKS Subramanian 17 Heroic popular resistance in Singur and NandigramSumit Chakravartty 18 The best of times the worst of timesSunanda Sanyal 19 My vision of India 2047 ADMahasweta Devi 20 Legitimacy and accountability of NGOs issues and optionsBuddhadeb Ghosh A fistful of dry rice interview with Debabrata BandyopadhyaySuhas BorkerThe book highlights three areas of public policy and governance land equity and democracy based on the vast experience and deep critical thinking of the authors The section on land deals with a variety of land tenure systems and their implications for efficiency of cultivation and returns to the cultivator the commitment of major political parties to pursuing the agenda of land redistribution reforms in tenancy relations developmental policies contributing to social exclusion with respect to access to common property resources subversion of redistribute land reforms in the process of implementation and social unrest caused by denial of rights in land to the rural poorThe section on equity focuses on the state of implementation of laws and programmes which benefit the poor and the marginalised groups It covers public policy neglect and denial of justice to the tribes in respect of their core concerns the lack of commitment to eliminate the scourge of debt bondage and manual scavenging iniquitous neo-liberal economy adversely impacting the Adivasis and the shrinking democratic space on account of the states repression of peaceful protests against unjust policiesThe section on democracy highlights the unresponsive character of the Indian state which imposes unjust economic policies on people unmindful of the suffering they cause and deals with a diverse range of issues from reversal of welfare-oriented development massive human rights violations in acquisition of land for development projects the security-centric response of the state to the challenge posed by the Maoist movement to peoples own efforts in addressing development deficit legitimacy and accountability of NGOs in advocacy and delivery of development programmes jacket 434 pp.