Tamil Nadu

The government of Bangladesh permitted four private seed companies to import seeds of rice hybrids for the 1998-99 boro season to make up the shortage of rice seeds after the floods in the 1998 aman (monsoon season rice) season, since there were no locally bred rice hybrids This paper primarily evaluates the farm-level performance of imported rice hybrids, based on representative sample farmers who grew hybrids during the 1999 boro season. The study findings support the view that hybrids were introduced in Bangladesh without a clear deployment strategy and without scientific evaluation of new rice hybrids under farmers' conditions before importing seeds.

As a civil society initiative to promote understanding among the people of the contending states and find an agreed solution to the Cauvery dispute, two meetings were organised in Chennai and Bangalore primarily of farmers from the two principal contending states. Both meetings were marked by a fraternal, harmonious and constructive spirit and a committee of farmers supported by a few advisers and facilitators has been set up. While it will be foolish to imagine that the long-festering dispute can be easily resolved, the positive approach displayed in the two meetings was encouraging and a cautious optimism seems warranted.

The lawyers' agitation in Tamil Nadu against the ordinance hiking court fees and the state government's eventual climbdown suspending it raises several issues on the citizens' right to access the justice system.

Notions and practices of masculinity are often reconfigured in the wake of rapid economic and socio-political transformation. This paper explores this aspect in a south Indian village across two dimensions. Changes in local economy have seen challenges posed to the long dominant position of the upper caste mudaliars based on their control on land, over the dalits. On the other hand, the entry of large numbers of women into the industrial work-force has played its part in modifying the relationship between caste, class and gender.

The march of thousands of unorganised sector workers in Tamil Nadu has brought to the fore the plight of this huge, neglected workforce and helped raise some of their long-pending demands.