Articles by Bharat Dogra

RAJASTHAIN Ecological Ruin and Exploitation Bharat Dogra IN Katarapara village of Dhangaon panchayat, in Dangarpur district of South Rajasthan, a widow looked at her two starving children and did not know what to do. Her two eider children had already migrated in search of work, and there was little hope that they would return soon with some cash. She decided to walk to a relative's home with two kids, but the relatives, it seemed, were themselves too hard pressed to come to her help. She started trudging back towards her home, clasping the two kids to her emaciated body. Totally exhausted, she sat down under a tree. It was at this stage that their miserable condition was brought to the notice of the police who reportedly pressurised the relatives to help her. By then it was too late for this unfortunate mother and her children -all three died in quick succession in the next few days.

PUNJAB Communal Tensions and Left Forces Bharat Dogra AS on March 23 every year, this year too a large number of people had gathered at Hussainiwala, on the banks of the Sutlej near the Indo-Pak border, where the last rites of martyrs Sukhdev, Rajguru and Bhagat Singh were hurriedly performed by the policemen of British Raj fifty-five years ago. But merely the gathering of people to pay tribute to them would have had little meaning for Bhagat Singh and his colleagues in the prevailing atmosphere of Punjab when the values dearest to them

appear to be correct on the part of the Board to insist on payment of rent by the fishermen concerned who were not fishing".
Following the ruling of the Supreme Court, the government was forced to return the fishing gear and craft to the fisher people. A number of fishermen complained that their catamarans and nets had been damaged and asked for compensation. The agitation was withdrawn and fishing operations were resumed on the Marina beach. The beach which wore a deserted look for weeks, looks more beautiful now with the catamarans and fisherpeople on the shore.

October 19, 1985 BIHAR First Stirrings and Repression A Report from Palamau Bharat Dogra PALAMAU block has become synonymous with severe forms of exploitation, including the extensively spread system of bonded labour. This recognition has led to various expressions of concern by several officials and ministers, and also the sanctioning of various studies, reports, projects, etc, on bonded labour and other aspects of exploita- tion. With all this happening, to what extent are the conditions becoming more conducive for the weaker sections to assert their rights?

August 24, 1985 Romance and Reality of Traditional Agriculture Bharat Dogra WHILE the government's agricultural development efforts continue to be based on propagation of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) grown with large doses of chemical fertilisers, there has nevertheless been a revival of interest in traditional agricultural systems and methods. The wisdom, specially avoidance of waste, of the traditional agricultural practices has been upheld on the basis of records of such practices going back to the last century, if not earlier. Side by side or within this trend, the virtues of natural farming against the chemical and machinery based farming of the green revolution type have been stressed. Indeed some writers have gone a step further and stressed natural farming to the extent of there being no tillage. In this context Masanobu Fokuoka's work (and his book "One Straw Revolution") and smaller experiments in India have been much discussed. Needless to add, after the Bhopal tragedy, the questioning of the necessity of agri-chemicals, and more specifically chemical pesticides, has received an additional impetus, although again this does not seem to be reflected in official thinking.