ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Apurba Kumar ChattopadhyaySubscribe to Apurba Kumar Chattopadhyay

Water Resource Management of the Damodar Valley Corporation

The water resource management of the Damodar Valley Corporation project for irrigation purposes has been examined to reveal that illegal canal water utilisation has been increasing over the years. Water availability (per hectare) has been declining in the tail-end area compared to the head-reach and middle-reach areas in all seasons, which has led to differentiated agricultural productivity and crop patterns across different segments of the canal command area. Further, reduction of reservoir storage capacity and increased water demand for non-agricultural purposes have reduced the share of irrigation water and increased flood hazards in the monsoon season in the downstream area of the Damodar river.

Spatio-temporal Variations of Crop Diversification

Crop diversification has been found to augment farmer’s income and employment, and to reduce poverty. An analysis of the nature and extent of crop diversification with spatio-temporal variations in the Damodar Valley Corporation command area in West Bengal is presented and the factors affecting crop diversification are identified. The spatial effect has been captured by segregating the DVC canal water course into three segments—head-reach, middle-reach and tail-end—according to the location of the area with respect to the water course. Uncertainty in respect of canal water availability in the tail-end area induces farmers to resort to higher crop diversification. The number of rural markets, distance of cultivated land from farmer’s home, and the number of adult family members engaged in agriculture significantly influence the nature of crop diversification.

Death in Police Custody

Abdul Kafi, Abhijit Bhattacharya, Abhijit Kundu, Aditi Ghosh, Amitava Chakraborty, Amitava Pal, Anindya Datta, Anirban Kundu, Anup Sinha, Apurba Kumar Chattopadhyay, Archana Prasad, Arijit Chaudhuri, Arindam Banerjee, Arun Jana, Asimananda Goswami, Aurnab Ghose, Ayesha Kidwai, Bhupen Sarmah, Bijay Bal, Binayak Dutta-Roy, Biswajit Haldar, Channa Basavaiah, Chirashree Dasgupta, Debabrata Pal, Debi Prasad Mishra, Debnarayan Jana, Dinesh Abrol, Dipak Kesh, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya, G Arunima, Gautam Gangopadhyay, Gautam Gupta, Guruprasad Kar, Himansu Charan Sadangi, Indraneel dasgupta, Indu Agnihotri, Ishita Mukhopadhyay, Janaky Sreedharan, Jayati Das, Jayeeta Sharma, Jyoti Sabharwal, Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya, Kaberi Chakraborty, Kamales Bhaumik, Kandarpa Das, Kaushik Bhattacharya, Kuntal Ghosh, M Rajivlochan, Mahalaya Chatterjee, Maitreyee Nandy, Maitreyee Saha Sarkar, Malabika Das Gupta, Manas Ray, Mritiunjoy Mohanty, Padmanava Basu, Parthapratim Pal, Parthasarathi Bhaumik, Parthiba Basu, Pradip K Mahapatra, Pranab Sarkar, Rahul Roy, Rajni Palriwala, Rajyeswar Sinha, Ranjeeta Dutta, Ratan Khasnobis, S Anandhi, Samantak Das, Sanjukta Ganguly, Saswata Bhattacharya, Satyabrata Chakraborty, Saumyajit Bhattacharya, Selvyn Jussy, Shantanu De Roy, Sharmistha Banerjee, Sharmistha Sen, Shaswati Mazumdar, Shibani Chaudhury, Subimal Sen, Subrata Pal, Sucharita Sen, Suchetana Chattopadhyay, Sudipta Bandyopadhyay, Sudipta Bhattacharya, Sukanta Bhattacharya, Sukhendu Sekhar Sarkar, Sumangala Damodaran, Sumit Kumar Baruya, Surajit Das, Surajit Mazumdar, Surajit Mukhopadhyay, Sushil Khanna, Taposik Banerjee, V K Ramachandran, Vamsi Vakulabharanam.

We have watched with disgust and horror the brutal police assault on students during a peaceful demonstration organised by four Left students’ organisations on 2 April 2013 in Kolkata and the subsequent death of Sudipta Gupta, a participant in the demonstration, while in police custody.

Distributive Impact of Agricultural Growth in Rural West Bengal

This paper explores the impact of spectacular agricultural growth on income distribution in rural West Bengal during the 1980s and early 1990s. It is revealed that during 1983 to 1993-94, when agricultural output in West Bengal was growing at an unprecedented rate, the degree of inequality in the distribution of rural consumption expenditure declined significantly. However, during the later part of the 1990s, when the rate of growth of agricultural output declined substantially, its impact on rural income distribution was reversed, with deceleration in the rate of growth of rural employment and average earning of the agricultural labour households. Thus, income distribution in rural West Bengal favoured the poorer classes of population or marginal and small farmers during the period of impressive agricultural growth. But neither the impressive agricultural growth nor the favourable change in rural income distribution could be sustained in the following period.

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