Khadi has strayed from its objective of providing a livelihood to artisans in rural areas. For preserving the ethos of khadi, rather than just tinker with the existing system a restructuring of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission is necessary. The potential of khadi needs to be exploited for its inherent worth rather than be supported for charity.

In suggesting an alternative to the current pattern of industrialisation we cannot ignore the environmental limits of industrial growth. Sustainable alternatives need to incorporate an understanding that non-industrial lifestyles and non-human life forms too deserve respect and space to flourish. This short piece offers a sympathetic critique of the Amit Bhaduri- Medha Patkar economic formula.

Crop-diversification under the integrated institutional set-up of corporate contract farming

Child labour is widespread in home-based manufacturing activities in the informal sector in most developing countries. However, very little is known of child labour in industrial outwork.

Wheat stocks are rising again, well beyond the minimum required, and a large procurement is expected from the 2009-10 wheat marketing season that begins on 1 April. India appears set once again for yet another phase of rising stocks, mounting carrying costs, and a crisis of plenty.

The article by Medha Patkar and Amit Bhaduri offers a correct critique of the current corporate-led rapacious industrialisation which destroys nature and livelihoods. But it does not focus enough on strategies of mobilising people to take charge of the form and content of industrialisation.

India

Gandhi's Hind Swaraj is more than a political text. It is an ontological drama staged by Gandhi, reflected in his treatises against "modern civilisation", and his critique of "modernity".

This note argues that the critique

This article critically appraises the incumbent regulatory mechanism in minerals and proposes a redrawal of the authority of central and state governments. It argues that for ensuring intra-generational and inter-generational equity the ownership rights over minerals should be vested with the state governments and the regulatory power with the central government.