Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of water parks and amusement centres. The iron laws of rural life don't apply in the entertainment complexes built right next to the poor. In a region that scarcely receives adequate water to meet people's drinking needs, there is plenty of water for the playgrounds of the rich, finds P Sainath.

Many in Vidarbha, like millions elsewhere, have simply stopped seeking medical help for their ailments. They just cannot afford it. Some farmers have mortgaged land to pay health bills, writes P Sainath.

Sometimes, simply showing up is half the battle won. In caste panchayats in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra, women activists are finding that attending them regularly is the best way for women to find justice in these community hearings. Aparna Pallavi reports.

The Ganesh festival is the most important event in Maharashtra. This season, farm distress has hit the utsav badly in Vidharbha. Very few have money to spend. Meanwhile, farmers' suicides there are going up. There has been one almost every 36 hours this year. P Sainath continues his series on the region's crisis.

Many farmers deep in debt are trying to find a way out through playing bhishi (chit funds). Denied bank loans and desperate for credit to run their farms and for other needs, they take huge risks. The results are usually tragic. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

The Bhagwan Datta mandir in Belkhed, Akola, was built by Dalits when they were still Hindus. It was ostensibly the focus of the fiery violence there earlier this month. The real reasons? Caste, the decline of organised Dalit politics, the crisis in agriculture, and wage conflicts - all played a role, writes P Sainath.

Farmers weighed down by debt are now falling prey to land grab by an array of predators that includes talatis and school teachers. A "proper" deed of sale is the preferred method. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

When an unexpectedly high number of people sought work recently under Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme, a District Collector decided to investigate. Her quest unearthed wide-spread fraud in the implementing agency, but also roused political forces determined to thwart her. Surekha Sule reports.

The National Commission on Farmers team, the public at large, and even sections of the media have signalled the crisis, its causes and its appalling human toll. Failure to intervene in Vidharbha now has no excuses at all. P Sainath continues his series on Vidharbha's crisis.

Harvesting water in the lower elevations is easier, because a lot of it gathers there, but this may be too late and too little. Not only do those in higher reaches suffer without water, additionally valuable topsoil is washed away if no percolation takes place at higher levels. Surekha Sule reports from Marathwada.

Demand for the randani roti, a staple of Dalit cooking in Central India, has risen steeply in recent years, and today the roti is the hub of a thriving small-scale industry. And alongside the mainstreaming of their food, Dalits are finding a rare escape hatch from their economic woes too. Aparna Pallavi reports.

Ten months after his father ended his life, Madhav toils from 6 am to 8 pm to herd the cattle of a big farmer for a paltry Rs 20 a day. Education? Forget it. In village after Vidarbha village where farmers have committed suicide, children have eventually dropped out of schools to take up the plough and work like beasts of burden, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

"This building is dangerous. It may collapse at any time. Enter at your own risk." So goes a warning sign at the entrance to a building in Mumbai. Buildings that crumble are an old tradition in this city, with at least one cause being the Rent Control Act. Dilip D'Souza says the pernicious law must go.

"In the time of crisis, when no helping hand is coming forward to rescue us, we have to manage ourselves," says Bhagwat Jadhav, a resident of Bondgavhan village in Vidarbha. His neighour, cotton farmer Ramesh Rathod committed suicide recently. "It could be our turn tomorrow," says a worried Jadhav. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

A farming family holding 27 acres in Vidarbha has become a marginal landholder in a span of few years, and a vicious cycle of usurious debt robbed their lands and hopes. There are hundreds of others in the lurch similarly. The farming crisis has different shades of exploitation; Jaideep Hardikar presents one.

"Of course I would like to be married to a nice boy and have a small family. Who doesn't?" asks Ganga Khatale, 31, with a fleeting twinkle. Amidst a desperate situation of suicides that even pushed two young girls to take their lives over marriage tensions, Ganga seems courageous in her hope. Varada Hardikar reports.

In what is supposed to be an annual religious and cultural gathering, nothing is more mixed up than the speeches. Talks that start with the fine points of Gondi religion, its practice and ritual, inevitably delve into subjects with deeper socio-political resonance. From interior Maharashtra, Aparna Pallavi reports on the annual Kachhargarh fair.

Inexplicably, Maharashtra's bosses have gone into hiding after announcing a "bailout package" for Vidarbha's beleaguered farmers. Not a single pie has been distributed yet, two months after the chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, announced it. Farmers' suicides are failing to move a heartless government, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

In Vidarbha, where over a thousand farmers have taken their own lives in last the four years over unabated distress, Venkanna Ramayya Rayee's suicide has an unusual edge. A farmer from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, his name won't figure as an entry in the suicide ledger in either state. Jaideep Hardikar has more.

Maharashtra's latest step towards water management has raised a large controversy, pitting strong views against one another. But lost amidst the arguments is an important fact - the solutions for our water crises are not going to be easy, because we've left ourselves very few options. M Rajshekhar reports.

While the sheer scale of the flooding in Mumbai last year made relief operations difficult, there was still much that the government could have done, but failed to do. The citizens themselves, were far more resourceful and sensitive to the plight of others, writes Darryl D'Monte, who served on the Concerned Citizens' Commission.

Suicides by consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total autopsies performed at a sub-district hospital in interior Vidarbha, Maharashtra. "Pesticide could be bought from any Krishi Kendra. But for medicine, they've to walk miles before they could get it," says one health official. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

A Standard & Poor-controlled firm is appointed to draft Pune's city development plan (CDP) in secrecy. An iron curtain of "don't ask us questions" appears when information about the contract is asked for. And then, the plan itself is botched up, violating the 74th Constitutional Amendment. Sheela Barse investigates.

A two-wheeler loan bonanza is overrunning crop-loan concerns in crisis-torn Vidarbha, where two to three farmers have been committing suicide daily. In a land where farmers find it difficult to get institutional loans for their crops, it seems getting loans for bikes are not. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

Amongst a number of other problems, this village in Sangli district, Maharashtra, was ridden with alcoholism and disease for over two decades. Since 2001, that began to change. Kavthepiran made a turnaround, banned alcoholism, and won a national award for 100 per cent sanitation this year. Vinita Deshmukh reports.

Too many factors coincided to deliver justice speedily in the Sunil More case. But whether this will have a long-term impact on rape cases is debatable. Unless the speed of investigation and the filing of charges becomes the norm, such cases will remain the exception, writes Kalpana Sharma.

At least sixteen committees and panels – from the National Farmers Commission led by Professor M S Swaminathan to the Planning Commission's fact-finding-mission led by bureaucrat Adarsh Misra – came this year to Vidarbha, apparently peeved by and concerned over the suicide crisis. Nothing has come of all this yet, notes Jaideep Hardikar.

With the decision to turn an important commercial road in the city into a walking plaza on weekends, Pune is reaping a healthier urban environment as well as a popular public space. Vinita Deshmukh reports that the early opposition from some quarters has given way, as more people take to the street.

There is now a growing body of opinion against soft drinks in particular and fast food in general being marketed to children through the media and directly in schools. A number of private schools in Mumbai have already stopped sales of colas in their canteens. Darryl D'Monte has more.

We visited Barshi-Takli because we heard about a farmer who had killed himself there, and then we found out about another farmer suicide there. We made futile little consoling cluck-clucks with bewildered widow, then a weeping mother. Dilip D'Souza visited grief-stricken families in Vidarbha.

In London, Singapore and Shanghai, high one-time car taxes and congestion fees have been used to regulate traffic load. In Mumbai though, despite the congestion and pollution caused by private motorised transport, road taxes and parking fees remain very low. Darryl D'Monte reports.

Stirred by a media campaign, a team of youngsters from Pune launched an effort to help villagers avoid the scramble for water at wells. Well-lined tanks and a simple pipeline has reduced the loss of water, and literally brought it to villagers' doorsteps. Vinita Deshmukh reports.

Biogas plants are not new, but their size, relative unwieldyness and reliance on large quantities of cattle dung have held back their potential attractiveness for the domestic cooking sector. That may change soon, thanks to the ingenuity of Dr Anand Karve. Vinita Deshmukh reports about Karve's new award-winning compact plant.

Can the State impose arbitrary and varying standards of vulgarity, indecency and obscenity for different sections of society or classes of people? Flavia Agnes notes that the Mumbai High Court's verdict in the dance bar bans case strikes the right note.

After the serial blasts, Mumbai may soon be faced with men with metal detectors checking bags, train stations with sniffer dogs, more checks, and more suspicion. In such an atmosphere, it will be much easier to sow the seeds of dissension, difference, or division. A city united in tragedy could easily fall apart, hazards Kalpana Sharma.

When the Maharashtra state government started punishing moneylenders in response to rising farmer suicides in Vidarbha, hundreds of cotton farmers complained. "Who will give us credit now?" they asked. Third in his series, Jaideep Hardikar records the deep-rooted factors for the dominance of the moneylender in Vidarbha.

The scientific establishment remains highly sceptical about organic methods. But Dr Tarak Kate and his colleagues at a Wardha-based NGO have collected data systematically, to negate the charge that this alternative is unscientific and unproven. Darryl D'Monte reports.

"We are confused, whom should we believe in? The finance minister says action will be taken within 48 hours against officials who do not release the credit, and the babus say they have no notification," says sixty-year-old Tatyaji Panghate at Ghonsa in Zari Jamni block of Yavatmal. Jaideep Hardikar reports on more suicides in Vidarbha.

Incessant rainfall in the catchment area of the Sardar Sarovar dam, coupled with less water being allowed to flow into the Narmada main canal led to an unusual overflow in early August, despite upstream dams not recording downstream releases. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports on the devastation in the Narmada valley.

In Maharashtra, robber baron politics exists on a scale many other states cannot dream of. Here, one finds crony capitalism at its worst; two or three parasitical and incestuous lobbies can get anything they want done. There is much the state can do differently, but then it will be not be the Maharashtra of our times, writes P Sainath.

With government health machinery not being of help, distress-ridden peasantry in Vidarbha unable afford private health care are now falling victim to the Chikungunya viral fever. This is bad news for agriculture, with crops already devastated by floods and heavy rains recently, reports Jaideep Hardikar.

In India, paid sex fuels the spread of HIV, its skewed power equation making it impossible for women to negotiate their own safety. Women in sex work in Mumbai now have an additional means to protect themselves – the female condom. Sumita Thapar and Akhila Sivadas report.

In response to the mass farmer suicides in Vidarbha, the state government is organising spiritual and counselling sessions, even as there are no signs that the economic roots of the crisis are being tackled. Jaideep Hardikar reports.

Recreation and play grounds in the nation's commercial capital may soon be handed over to 'caretakers' with liberal concessions for builders and developers. Meanwhile, bona fide caretakers of public spaces, who've been doing the corporation's job for it for years, find new hurdles. Darryl D'Monte reports.

A Marathi booklet published by the Pune-based National Centre for Advocacy Studies reveals a number of lesser known facts about the latest controversy in Indian development - Special Economic Zones. From land-use patterns to crony land acquisition to the stake of real estate developers in Maharashtra, Aparna Pallavi sums it up.

Both the Maharashtra Chief Minister's and the Prime Minister's relief packages for Vidarbha included for distribution of thousands of cows to the region's beleagured farmers. Jaideep Hardikar finds out that the measure has hurt, not helped.

Technology majors are keen to establish direct contact with potential customers in rural areas, and setting up computer kiosks is an important step in this direction. These first steps are hardly catalytic, but that has not deterred the companies, which are thinking of markets far into the future. Gagandeep Kaur reports.

The idea of world class highways in India, runway smooth, takes some getting used to. There is the Golden Quadrilateral from Delhi to Mumbai, and then there are the 70 kms of rubble between Disa in Gujarat and Sanchor in Rajasthan. Dilip D'Souza drives into the New Year weekend.

While the idea of Bus Rapid Transit has merit, its implementation in Pune has created a poor first impression. Inadequate planning, lack of enforcement of dedicated lanes for buses, and haste in rolling out the project have all been criticised, and experts find much room for improvement. Vinita Deshmukh reports.

After the police firing incident at Wani in Vidarbha last month, the Maharashtra government's cotton procurement at the minimum support price rose to 20,000 quintals in four days at one centre alone. But in weeks, it's back to the old ways, making distressed farmers wait at market yards for days, writes Jaideep Hardikar.