JHARKHAND

Jharkhand is a state with immense opportunities but unmet expectations. These
opportunities can be unlocked with a comprehensive reform process that has the following
elements.
a. Have an inclusive agenda of development where the requirements of the masses are
at the forefront of administrative action. This includes employment and selfemployment avenues, basic needs and requirements, and safety and security.
b. Strengthen and make more efficient the ability of its administration to deliver a
good environment for (i) living and (ii) earning. This requires creating an economic
ecosystem that facilitates entrepreneurship for large, medium, small and micro
enterprises; both in the organized and unorganized domains.
c. Ensure a 360 degree monitoring of government actions; this requires monitoring
within the government as also by outside entities. The government and its senior
functionaries need to be answerable to the people of the state.
2. To reiterate, the Committee believes that the only way by which long term economic
development can be sustained is if all segments of society are a part of that process. Hence
development should not be confused with industrialization or corporatization.
Industrialization is but one element of a much larger process of improvement in lifestyles,
7opportunities and the environment.
3. In line with these objectives the report establishes the following principles.
a. The first set of reforms should be able to generate improvements in growth and also
government tax and non tax revenues within a short span of time. These can then
be used to invest in efficiency improvements. A virtuous cycle needs to be created,
with benefits from actions in one stage used to generate greater benefits in the
next.
b. The ability to move on a path of greater progress is to a large extent dependent
upon the ability of the government functionaries to perform individually and as a
group. Hence improvement in administrative abilities of the state forms a significant
part of this report.
c. All round progress requires all round action; however human capital and expertise is
limited both within and outside the government, and will take some time to build.
Hence the state government needs to partner with organizations outside the state,
these include sector specialist organizations such as NSDC, ILFS, NHB, IDFC, etc. At
the same time Public Private Partnerships need to be accelerated in all domains.
d. Decentralization is an established principle and needs to be made an integral part of
the government’s reform process. Greater delegation of responsibilities is required
towards the local bodies (both ULBs and PRIs). Within the government lower tiers
need to be provided greater decision-making powers. Moreover, many of the
Transforming Jharkhand – Agenda for Change 6
functions and responsibilities can be delegated to private entities whether they are
commercial, cooperatives and communities or non-profit organizations.
e. Civil society needs to be strengthened and that implies that the government needs
to make interaction between NGOs and government functionaries an integral part of
governance.
f. Greater information availability and citizen redressal is another synergistic
component of this larger process. E-governance, information boards in rural areas,
annual development reports; independent monitoring of government actions and
their impact is another set of reforms that will be critical in guaranteeing
sustainability of reforms.
4. Rapid economic growth is both an objective and an outcome of people oriented reforms.
The committee estimates that with no reforms growth till 2025 will stagnate at about
current levels, with limited reforms would be about 10 percent, but with deep structural
reforms can be in the region of 15 percent annually. High growth will generate additional
tax revenues that are many times the current tax revenues. This in turn can enable a far
deeper set of investments in enhancing welfare and development expenditures.

Santals are one of the highly significant and well-studied tribes of India which belongs to ProtoAustoroid community. (Guha, 1944). Creation myths of Santals revolve around the creation of
the world from the perspective of cosmology. Since the creation myths of santals are of human
civilization, it is important to look at the genesis of oral narratives on creation to trace the
historiography of the Santal tribe and their culture. At this juncture, most of the tribal
communities have been listed as endangered (Census 2011); scholars of humanities and social sciences in the contemporary scenario have started focusing on studying and preserving the tribal
languages and cultures in India. There have been several translations of the santal literature,
scholarships such as W.H.Archer’sThe Blue Groove, SitakantMahapatra’sThe Awakened Wind:
The Oral Poetry of the Indian Tribes. The scholarship has been focusing to locate and validate the
tribal literature as a genre. Santals are rich in oral narratives such as songs, poems, and stories on
cultivation, nature, marriage, and festivals but there is a lack of knowledge about the dawn of
human civilisation among the tribal scholarship. Since tribal community have come in contact
with several amalgamations of the colonial penetration, Hindu institution of idol worship,
Christian missionaries, and the dawn of technological advancement, it is important to be aware
of one’s root in order to conquer the identity conflict among the tribals. There are several
variations on the Santal creation myth, particularly in the process of telling, retelling and sharing
across generations and shifting socio-cultural environment. The study seeks to move backward to
the inception of the world as believed by the Santal tribe, focusing on Binti, literally translated
as ‘prayer’ or ‘plea’, a song of cosmology, generally recited by a group of three or more singers
at marriage ceremonies. This study primarily examines the creation myth called ‘Binti’,
documented and translated into English by Sitakant Mahapatra in his work ‘The Awakened
Wind: The Oral Poetry of the Indian Tribes’ focusing on re-stabilizing tribal identity and
analyses the Santal folklore tradition, oral narratives as performative arts and creation myths in
translation from the aspect of ethnic culture and its significance among Santals. The paper also
focuses on the historiography of the Santal world view and Santal culture.
Keywords: Santal tribe, Binti, Creation Myth, Tribal Culture, Identity.

Human security forms an important part of people’s well-being, and is therefore an important precondition for development. The UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report's definition of human security identifies seven areas viz. economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security those threaten human security. Being an inter-disciplinary concept, it has simultaneously people-centered, multi-sectoral, comprehensive, context-specific, prevention-oriented characteristics. The present study adopts the Department for International Development (DFID) model of livelihood analysis that identifies five capital assets viz. natural, social, financial, physical, and human for sustainable livelihood at the micro level. Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is a key element of the social capital of the eco-literate people and constitutes their main asset in their efforts to gain control of their own lives. The study highlights the livelihood framework of a village of Pakur district of Jharkhand in order to understand the role of the existing practices and assets in securing the way of life of this primitive tribal group. The survival strategy of the community touches the full spectrum of life including economic, ecological, social, health and tribal identity regardless of various extraneous forces.

By locating the Tana Bhagats in the shifting terrains of forests and fields in Chhotanagpur, and by examining the hierarchies within the Oraon community, this paper suggests an alternate reading of adivasi protest in colonial India. It also revisits the relationship between the Congress and the adivasis. Finally, by counterpoising the colonial archive with Tana pamphlets and petitions , it analyses different narratives of Tana pasts in order to make sense of how histories and memories of adivasi protest are reworked in postcolonial times.

Urbanization, a new phenomenon in areas
inhabited by indigenous peoples of India, is
marked by dispossession of their land and
resources, accentuating poverty, health hazards,
causing damage to the ecology and environment,
and livelihood, combined with the absence of
share and participation in development. Keeping
these contexts, the paper examines and reflects on
the challenges of inclusive and sustainable urban
development in the tribal areas of India.

The objective of this paper is to examine the relation between the pace of urbanisation and growth of slum population in Jharkhand. This paper also attempts to analyse the trends and patterns of growth of slum population at the district level in Jharkhand. In terms of urbanisation process of India, slums have become an integral part of urban scenario. In India, rapid growth of slums is the result of rural-urban migration of the rural poor to the cities/towns in search of employment in the last two decades. In the absence of any affordable housing, there has been growth of slums in the urban areas of the country. In India, out of a total population of 1.21 billion, 31.30% population resides in the urban areas, but 21.68% (61.8 million) of the total urban population live in the slums. Slums are considered as a major problem within the urban areas, particularly in relation to the issues of transportation, population growth, health and safety. The developing states or regions of India a...

The Adivasi women of Jharkhand negotiate with power structures within the family system and society, and are further entrapped in gender hegemonies that are part of larger shifts in the political economy. Their lived experiences in the urban and rural landscape of Ranchi, a Schedule V district under the Constitution, and an analysis of the enforcement of legal machinery in removing or tightening the existing disparities provide crucial insights into the sociolegal realities of the lives of Adivasi women, thereby mapping their everyday experiences of violence and the means available to address their issues.

Violence against women in Jharkhand State of India, is widespread and growing across class and caste boundaries. This not only poses a serious threat to women’s dignity, but also has adverse consequences for the society, family and children’s well-being. In this context, this paper explores and discusses the various factors behind violence against women and its impact on society. The paper is based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of secondary data sources. The paper suggests that to curb the violence against women, intervention strategies should draw on a wide range of expertise and resources; and concludes that besides laws, acts and policies to stop violence against women, recognizing violence against women as a social and human rights issue is an essential first step towards the movement of creating a violence free society.

This paper attempts to examine and understand the low literacy level and education among tribal children in Jharkhand. The paper discusses the role of government, institutions, programmes and linkages between education and development. Various programmes and schemes have been initiated but very few of them have reached the tribal children and benefited them. Many of the programmes did not benefit the tribal community because the programmes were not contextualized and localized considering regional, geographical and physical differences and barriers. Other reasons for not reaching the benefits of the programs to the tribals are lack of political will, corruption, and lesser attention on development in tribal areas. The paper highlights the need for special focus on tribal education, which is inclusive of context specific traditional and innovative interventions.

This paper focuses on certain Hindu beliefs, traditions, and even gods and temples or shrines having their origin in the Adivasi beliefs with a focus on Sarna faith among the Santhal community. It has been argued that it might be possible that Hinduism in India has evolved from Adivasi beliefs or appropriated elements of Adivasi beliefs and a faith system of cultural and ritualistic patterns has emerged in the shared and contested lives of Adivasi and Hindu people.

Criminalisation against women is a cultural practice. Witch hunting is an instrument of class as well as gender oppression used by the propertied classes against the Adivasi women. It is constructed as primarily originating in evil practices, irrationality and superstition. Superstition, health, illiteracy and property are the four major reasons for witchcraft incidents in Jharkhand. The socio-legal evidence from Jharkhand which already has a special law on witch hunting shows their inefficacy in dealing with witch hunting and related forms of violence. Criminalisation of witch hunting through special laws is an inadequate response to the problem which has much in common with other forms of violence. There is a need to focus on accountability and reform of the agencies that activate the criminal justice system and to plug the vacuum in relation to reparative justice.

This study highlights some of the dimensions of the agrarian crisis faced by Jharkhand’s farmers. The report begins with a review of literature that shows how successive governments have failed to address farmers’ needs, such as for irrigation facilities, procurement of produce at a minimum support price, or creation of off-farm employment opportunities in rural areas. Agricultural development is still understood by government agencies and scientists to mean following the path of the earlier Green Revolution, which is a sure recipe for creation of dependency, debt and suicide among farmers, as well as poor health, loss of agro-biodiversity, and damage to the environment. Whereas the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s provided a heavily subsidised seed-fertiliser package to farmers who had assured irrigation, the current private sector led agricultural paradigm includes none of this, but instead forces poor, mostly subsistence farmers into a costly and unsustainable mode of production.

This study, based on a survey of 493 farming households spread across 11 districts, shows that a vast majority of households are happy with farming as an occupation and almost all farmers want their children to continue farming. The majority of farming households grow cereals, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables; and on average a household grows 10-11 different crops. Paddy, maize, and wheat are the most grown cereals, whereas farmers are shunning nutritious millets like maduwa (finger millet) and gondli (foxtail millet). Kurthi (horse gram), urad (black gram) and rahar/arhar (pigeon pea/red gram) are the most grown pulses, and sarso (mustard) and sargunja (niger) the most grown oilseeds. The study highlights how the introduction of F1 hybrid seeds has drastically reduced availability of local seeds across much of the state. For example, half of the study’s households purchase F1 hybrid rice seed both from foreign and Indian multinationals. Many smaller Indian companies are involved in the hybrid business too. Farmers worry about shortage of local seed for all crops, for reasons including cost of hybrid seed, loss of independence, and lack of quality/taste of hybrid produce.

Jharkhand’s agriculture can no longer be said to be by default organic. Due to the promotion of high yielding varieties and F1 hybrid seeds by the government, non-government and private sector, most households have used chemical fertilisers and three-quarters use chemical pesticides on their crops. Farmers apply pesticides without using protective clothing, and often apply the wrong types too. For example, pesticides approved for use on cotton are commonly sold to farmers to apply on vegetables. This sector is unregulated and the retailers too are under-informed or ignore the approved uses and waiting periods of the various pesticides. Much of the vegetable produce reaching consumers’ plates is laced with the residues of toxic, illegally applied pesticides. These and other forms of pollution from industry also pose a threat to the food items households collect from their surroundings, like types of wild saag and fish. The sector needs regulation, and farmers need training and support to reduce their dependence on these chemicals.

53 percent of the study’s respondents are classified as marginal farmers (owning less than 1 ha), 38 percent small farmers (1-2 ha), and 7 percent medium farmers (2-5 ha). This study also takes into account cultivated farmland officially classified as forest land, gairmazrua (g.m.) land, and share-cropped or contract land. In total, these land types add 231 acres to the total area cultivated by the 493 sample households; which is 17 percent of the total cultivated area. On average this translates to almost half an acre per household. Inclusion of these land types brings the average cultivated area from 2.31 to 2.78 acres per household, and increases the proportion of medium-sized farmers (2-5 ha) from 7 to 11 percent of the total. The government would help farmers by giving them the title deeds to the forest and g.m. land they cultivate. The government should make sincere efforts to ensure that only unproductive land, with the permission of gram sabhas and strict adherence to environmental regulations, is allotted to industries and mining.

Only 37 percent of farming households have access to some kind of irrigation. Three-quarters of these households have access to wells, mostly constructed with government funding, and 30 percent of these households have access to the water stored in talabs and bandhs. While well construction has been a success, the scheme targets individuals not communities, so households with larger landholdings, a proxy for wealth, are more likely to avail the scheme than those with smaller landholdings. Indeed, the study shows that over half of medium size farmers, but less than one-third of marginal farmers have access to irrigation water. Agricultural wells cannot irrigate large areas of farmland. The development of small-scale irrigation facilities therefore remains a pressing concern. Instead of centralised programmes that prescribe the irrigation structure to be built in a uniform manner, like the current dobha programme, funds could be provided directly to gram sabhas to allow village communities to themselves renovate old and develop new irrigation facilities. This would mark a break from the engineering paradigm that has hitherto marred irrigation development.

Very few farming households’ access financial support from the government’s various schemes. Two-thirds of farmers self finance, and 60 percent engage in exchange labour. Just 10 percent have taken loans from Self Help Groups, 8 percent from Kisan Credit Card (KCC), 12 percent from banks, and only two households have taken a loan from a government cooperative society. 19 percent take loans from their family, and 9 percent from money lenders. In total 44 percent of farmers said they’d taken a loan for farming, of a median average of 8,000 rupees. 61 percent of households sell some of their produce, earning a median average of 10,000 rupees per year. Only 21 percent of respondents said they knew the meaning of MSP – Minimum Support Price. The MSP for paddy is set at 16 rupees/kilo, but of 76 farmers who sold paddy in 2016, 93 percent sold it at between 10 and 12 rupees/kilo. 85 percent of respondents’ crops have been damaged by the weather in the past, with an estimated median average loss of 16,000 rupees. Only 12 households were compensated by the government for their losses. 28 percent of the surveyed farmers said they had crop insurance; less than the 42.5 percent of farmers said by the government to have been covered by September 2016.

The agrarian crisis is essentially caused by the government’s long-term neglect of agriculture. The private sector led petrochemical-based farming model that has filled the void left by government inaction has failed to increase the food security of farmers. This is evident from Jharkhand’s 2017 ranking as first among India’s states in terms of both proportion of underweight under-5s (48%) and prevalence of wasting (weight for height) in under-5s (29%). In particular, the unregulated misuse of pesticides poses a grave threat to the health of the soil and the environment, as well as to farmers and consumers. There is an urgent need to support farmers to conserve in-situ whatever traditional seeds are still sown in the state. To complement development of agriculture, creation of meaningful off-farm employment opportunities, educational facilities and healthcare facilities in rural areas is required. This would reduce the number of out-migrants from Jharkhand, and the flow of population and resources from village to town. To this end, Jharkhand requires its own agricultural policy, designed with wide civil society consultation, to support farmers to shift towards a sustainable, productive and remunerative form of agriculture that can produce healthy food that suits the culture and traditions of the people, and agro-ecological conditions of the region.

Discourse analysis is the branch of linguistics which has a widespread impact on sociology, literature, media communication and psychology. This mode of literary investigation discusses the treatment of social issues in literary texts. Discourse analysis has acquired significance because of its multidisciplinary approach. Literary texts are capable of communicating with societies and they are often used as tools for social transformation. Literature often manifests the social evils like misuse of political or administrative power, sexual bias and racial discrimination. Effective use of language can create societal awareness and stimulate the urgency to comprehend reality and take necessary actions. In this regard, this paper claims to highlight the power of discourse in social change through the literary text The Adivasi Will Not Dance by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar. He is considered as a discourse analyst and his works expose the social reality of his tribe (Santhal community) in Northern India. In this context, this paper attempts to discuss the centrality of discourse in portraying the marginalised identities.

Identification, access to entitlements, and financial inclusion are key sites of negotiation in India’s rapidly evolving governance landscape. Following demonetization and with the proliferation of Aadhaar biometric identification, the Government of India is increasingly tracking money and populations. Amidst these shift in identification and access pathways, this research seeks to understand how access to Aadhar and voter ID for internal migrants impacts access pathways to fundamental rights and formal financial inclusion in five states in India.

In the Tata company town of Jamshedpur, incisive popular discourses of corruption posit a mutually beneficial relationship between ‘legitimate’ institutions and organised criminality; a dynamic believed to enable pervasive transformations in the city’s industrial and financial infrastructures. This article situates this local discourse within the wider body of anthropological work on South Asian corruption, noting a discursive departure from the hegemonic, personalised and essentially provincialising corruption models encountered by many researchers. The article interrogates the popular model of crime and corruption in Jamshedpur through a focus upon the business practices of local violent entrepreneurs, exploring the extent to which their negotiations with corrupt institutions and ‘legitimate’ capital may indeed inform their successes. Drawing analytic cues from material on organised crime in the former USSR, this article identifies a mutually beneficial relationship between political influence, violence and industrial capital in an Indian company town.

A lot has been written and discussed how India is at the point of take-off.  Economic growth is accelerating, and most believe that high growth is going to continue for many years into the future.  A generation that is less affected by colonial hang-ups, more confident, highly educated and aware, is leading all sectors of the Indian economy.  However, differences within the country remain, and may even widen if concerted efforts are not put in.  Identifying the constraints and strengths at the state and sub-state level will enable a much more fine-tuned action.  This volume is designed to facilitate that objective by informing industry, students, government, NGOs, and any person interested in the progress of the states of India.

India has 6 Union Territories and 29 states (including Delhi which is now considered to be a state).  Of the 29 states, 19 have a population greater than 10 million – roughly the population of Poland.  Of the 235 countries of the world, 150 odd countries have a population below 10 million.  At 131 million UP has a population that is lower than only 8 countries including India.  A state such as Rajasthan has a land area greater than 342,000 sq. km and is larger than the United Kingdom and Ireland combined.  That there are significant differences in lifestyles, facilities, law and order, governance between different states is well known; but again, this common knowledge has come about more due to perceptions formed out of individual experiences.

Though most documents and reports bring out the salient features of the key states of India, few are able to bring out for the smaller states, Union Territories, and the north-east.  Moreover, precious few do so using data and information in an objective manner, such that anyone can decipher the strengths and weaknesses on various fronts.  Over and above that, very little is known about how states compared with each other.  Last, but not least, little is known how different parts of a state compared with each other. 

Indicus Analytics received support from PHDCCI to put together information on scores of different issues for all the states of India, including yours.  This information draws from the most credible and highly respected publications and databases brought out in recent years.  After ensuring that the information met the minimum quality specifications, it was analyzed in different ways.  Data for a state was compared over time and also with other states.   

Care has been taken that the researchers’ biases do not creep up, as is the case in many such comparisons.  The reader should for himself understand the various constraints that his or her state is facing, how well it is performing, how it compares to other states in the vicinity and with India overall.  This is all put together in such a way that the reader can draw his own conclusions. 

We hope that this profile benefits you in better understanding your state.  However, despite many crosschecks and dependence on credible information some errors might have crept in.  We accept those and would appreciate your comments for future improvements.

The passing of the Bihar Reorganization Bill on November 15th, 2000 gave birth to the 28th state of the nation, Jharkhand, on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the legendary Bhagwan Birsa Munda. Jharkhand as a state is known as a vast reservoir of natural resources in terms of forest areas as well as minerals. However, in spite of this immense potential, it has not been able to utilize its resources properly. The widespread unrest perpetrated by Naxalites in recent times has further added to the problem. It thus puts a challenge before the state to provide good governance and to enable equitable growth and socio-economic progress.
The Jharkhand Development Report is a depiction of the current scenario in Jharkhand across different socio-economic parameters, which will enable readers to understand the various elements crucial for growth and development in the state. It will also provide an indication to the policymakers to take constructive steps in those areas where the state is lagging behind. The present study makes an attempt to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the state, objectively using government data. Various aspects of Jharkhand's economy and the changes therein over time have been tracked to see the extent of progress in different indicators of growth and development. Since this study is the sixth in the series, data has been updated from the previous edition, where available.  In each of these aspects, Jharkhand's status in comparison to other states has been discussed. Further, a comparative analysis of various districts of the state has also been presented. Given the importance of industries in engineering the growth of a region, a detailed profile of industries is presented, identifying the largest and fastest growing industries in each district of Jharkhand. As Naxalism is a burning issue for the state, a special assessment of the Naxal affected districts is carried out along with an inter-state comparison of Naxal affected states. 
The study is divided into nine sections each dealing with various issues related to development. Section I of the study takes up perspectives on Jharkhand. The second section of the study explores the quality of governance, examines the knowledge and communication base as well as looks into the socio-economic profile of Jharkhand. The states, which are being considered for comparison, are in one way or the other, related to Jharkhand.  We have considered the parent state of Jharkhand, Bihar, new states that were formed at the same time as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand and the other neighbours of Jharkhand - West Bengal and Orissa. In some cases, where relevant, we have also considered states that have performed significantly well in the areas under discussion.
The third section of the study lays out the profile of each district of Jharkhand in detail. This section is further divided into three parts - the first part deals with the indicators of growth and development for each district, the second part presents an intra-state analysis where the districts of the state are compared and ranked. The third part discusses the industrial profile of Jharkhand identifying the key growth drivers of the industrial sector in each district of the state.
The fourth section is an addition this year which lays out in detail the performance of Jharkhand in establishing capacities in higher and technical education. Capacity development in the sphere of higher education is important in order to build trained and skilled manpower in the state. 
The fifth section provides a comparative picture of the parliamentary constituencies in the state in terms of various socio-economic and infrastructure based parameters. The sixth section explores the potential cities of the state, whereas the state in the eastern zone is ranked in terms of socio-economic variables in the seventh section. A special assessment of the Naxal affected districts is carried out in section VIII along with an inter-state comparison of Naxal affected states. The future economic growth prospects of Jharkhand is discussed in the last section where a forecast is made for per capita income of Jharkhand vis-a-vis other states in 2020 and compared against incomes in various countries today. This enables us to visualize where the state is headed if it continues to grow at the current pace.

The way government action impacts and shapes authority over and access to resources in local political spheres in resource-conflict, state-building contexts merits academic attention. In this light, this study shows what nurtures or prevents inclusive and equitable local governance in the recently-formed federal Indian state of Jharkhand, and what local governance looks like in practice in this state-building context. It comprises three articles, empirically focussed on forest village communities of the indigenous Ho people in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district. The first article presents how a formal local deliberative institution can nurture democratic practice based on a comparative study of two cases, arguing that several factors both within the community and external to it are requisite for local democracy. The second article demonstrates the practices through which governmental development interventions systemically enable top-down authorisation without downward accountability and undermine local democracy by eliding development and securitisation. The third article interrogates the mechanisms through which local actors access benefits from government services, arguing that government policies enable privileged private actors to co-opt authority over access and claim inequitably large shares of benefits at the cost of ordinary villagers. However, instances of cooperation and local agency are also highlighted and serve as the basis to suggest specific improvements towards state-building that enables equitable, inclusive authorisation of resource access.

This article posits that the ecological and food security crisis in present-day rural Jharkhand is caused by privatisation of landholdings, appropriation of village land by the state, and lack of technological and infrastructural investment and support to agriculture by successive governments. In earlier times farming communities created small-scale storage works for the supplemental irrigation of paddy. This development of storage works was later constrained by the rigid private property rights regime initiated in the colonial period, and by state appropriation of village land post-independence. The management of some storage works was affected by the partial land reforms enacted post-independence. Since the 1980s there have been limited efforts by the government and NGOs to develop new small-scale irrigation systems, and even less to support pre-existing systems. To limit further ecological degradation and improve the food security of households, control over natural resources within village boundaries should be returned to village communities.

Adivasis are typically viewed by scholars, activists, and policymakers alike as primitive subjects trapped within modern state imaginaries. Adivasi politics, therefore, is understood vis-a-vis the dramaturgy of postcolonial tragedy. Such an understanding, I argue, denies any meaningful agency to adivasis, and prevents an exploration of the rich, multi-layered performances of resistance through which adivasi subject-formation is successfully negotiated in postcolonial India. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Jharkhand, this paper probes into the myriad tropes and strategies by which the modes, mechanisms, and meanings of modern state power have been reworked and resisted in two apparently opposed moments of resistance: the "peaceful" Koel-Karo anti-dam movement of the 1980s and the ongoing "violent" Maoist movement. In doing so, I show how the aesthetics of power are tied inextricably, albeit ironically, to the ethics of subaltern resistance, each acting and reacting upon the other to define the potentialities of and proscriptions on political expression in the margins of the postcolony.

This chapter documents how decentralisation reforms have failed to achieve regional development in one of India's most resource-rich and conflict-affected districts, namely West Singhbhum, in the federal state of Jharkhand which was formed out of the southern part of Bihar state in 2000. Focussing on indigenous communities of the Ho, a people recognised as a Scheduled Tribe by the Indian Constitution and thus afforded numerous legal safeguards and privileges, it probes how the nature of development in recent decades has systemically failed to enable sustainable local livelihoods for these forest-dwelling subsistence farmers through decentralised governance. Instead, natural resource extraction aimed at driving India’s economic growth in the same period has compounded the vulnerabilities of this marginalised group rather than bringing empowerment. The first part traces the history of natural resource governance in West Singhbhum from 1976 onwards, at the beginning of a period of pronounced state-community conflict prompted by extractive industrial activity without local benefits, while recounting parallel national-level legislative developments based on secondary research. The second part picks up the state-level narrative in this regard from 15 November 2000 onwards when Jharkhand was created as a federal Indian state out of the resource-rich southern part of Bihar in response to a complex, long-standing political movement, again drawing on existing literature to provide an overview of the regional institutional and political context with regard to natural resource governance. The third part of the chapter maintains this focus in present-day West Singhbhum, based on six months of primary research carried out subsequent to the state-wide elections conducted in 2010. The fourth and final part concludes that attempts at decentralised natural resource governance in recent decades have been unable to establish Ho people’s control over resources and their own development trajectory or safeguard their means of sustainable local livelihoods, as Jharkhand's political economy has continued to be characterised by entrenched patterns of industrial production based on resource exploitation by outsiders. It argues that this trend is reinforced in contemporary Jharkhand despite new state creation, suggesting that future state-building efforts must focus on local livelihoods through more substantive decentralised natural resource governance in order to ensure political stability and pro-population development in this volatile region.

In a strange house in a strange village during a strange time, Purnima Soren waits for her lover, Gopal Hansda, to return to her.
"Where is Gopal?" (short story)
First published in print in the Fiction Special of Mint Lounge; issue dated January 1, 2022.
May be read online, here: https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/big-story/lounge-fiction-where-is-gopal-by-hansda-sowvendra-shekhar-111640929161676.html

One of the major early surveys undertaken by the Archaeological Survey of India was that by J.D.M. Beglar. Beglar documented, inter alia, large number of monuments and 'antiquities' in different sectors of the Bengal province. His survey reports of the western sectors of Bengal have remained a major guide for further archaeological researches in the area. However, almost no attention has been paid by later researchers on the present archaeological contexts of artefacts and monument originally documented by Beglar. This paper is a preliminary attempt at revisiting a cluster of small sites in the eastern fringe areas of the Chhotanagpur plateau, first documented by Beglar, and to re-examine the present locations of a set of sculptural material documented by Beglar at these sites.

Online shopping is a growing area of technology. Establishing a store on the Internet, allows for retailers to expand their market and reach out to consumers who may not otherwise visit the physical store. The convenience of online shopping is the main attraction for the consumers. Unique online payment systems offer easy and safe purchasing from other individuals. Electronic consumers exhibit different buying behaviors such as; cart abandonment. The benefits of shopping online also come with potential risks and dangers that consumers must be aware of. In the future, we can expect online stores to improve their technology tremendously, allowing for an easier and a
more realistic shopping experience.

Training needs assessments are pivotal for any capacity building program. Building capacity of service providers and staff involved in HIV/AIDS intervention programs is crucial because of the distinct nature of such programs. It requires specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are of utmost importance, influencing the reach of the program and its impact in halting and reversing the epidemic. This study was conducted to identify the training needs assessment of personnel involved in targeted intervention for high risk populations vulnerable to HIV infection in Jharkhand, India. Through the study the authors critically examine the existing training needs and gaps and suggest strategies to address them.

The formation of Jharkhand on the behest of development and change in the life of local people were actually political gimmick to encash the euphoric regional sentiments for power. The ruling national parties used to retreat in policy matters that threatens their political stability in changing political atmosphere due to the rise of regional parties conditioned to regional movements. Jharkhand is one of the best example of this flimsy politics where national parties retain its political bases through championing stands be it preservation of regional identity or development agenda altogether rhetorically used to seduce masses and to make orphan region’s emerging powers.

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India, carved out of the southern part of Bihar on 15 November 2000. The state is rich in mineral resources and covered with forest. The state has developed in the last two decades. But the non-developmental activities of rural areas caused poverty. The harassment of individuals and society caused many to own naxalism to fight for. The research analyses a documentary film 'The Hunt' made by Meghnath and Biju Toppo's which explores the lives and consequences of being sons of the soil. Film 'The Hunt' explores the condition of human rights in the Naxal affected areas of Jharkhand. The research includes the steps taken by state govt. to eradicate naxalism for the development of Jharkhand.

This study contributes to improving natural resource governance in central eastern India by identifying the factors that determine access to a non-wood forest product called the mahua (Madhuca indica) flower, or matkam in the Ho language. These flowers are an income source for forest-dependent Ho people's village households in Jharkhand state's West Singhbhum district during the farming off-season. The commodity chain involves local and regional traders, and the main commercial use is distilling liquor from mahua flowers. Since the Bihar and Orissa Excise Act of 1915, this has been banned in this region, where mahua flowers are traded without any regulatory policy, then used illegally by distillers or transported to neighbouring states. Tracing how overlapping government policies and entangled institutions undermine the Ho's access to this resource as local users and owners, the study explains how relatively privileged traders are able to maintain an extractive exploitation-based political economy. Delving into ethnographic nuances, it improves our understanding of access to mahua flowers for Jharkhand's forest-dwelling communities, being centrally concerned with how various processes and structures impact everyday access to natural resources for marginalised groups.It argues that by devolving power and resources to a formal local democratic institution, the Jharkhand government can enable communities to make collective decisions and enforce them with regard to accessing benefits from natural resources such as the mahua flower.

Reading about Santal houses in Gauri Bharat’s book, “In Forest, Field and Factory: Adivasi Habitations through Twentieth-Century India”, pulled me out of a stupor that came from being a mere complacent inheritor of a rich heritage. What I read in this book was not only unexpected, it humbled me. My review, first published online on Tuesday, 5 October 2021 in The Third Eye: https://thethirdeyeportal.in/structure/the-adivasi-in-the-city/

The green revolution is one of the greatest successes that the country has observed and resultantly achieved self-sufficiency and a good degree of stability in food grain production. However, the country still faces the challenges of comprehensive food security and malnutrition, Thus, vegetables will play an important role by contributing adequate vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, fibres etc. but it is a known fact that horticulture sector in India is constrained by low crop productivity, limited irrigation facilities and underdeveloped infrastructure support like cold storages, markets, roads, transportation facilities etc. There are heavy post-harvest and handling losses, resulting in low productivity per unit area and high cost of production. Analysis shows, there is an inverse relation between the farm size of the respondents and their overall problems of marketing vegetables in farmers' market. It could be noted that higher their farm size, lower their overall problems of marketing vegetables in farmers' market and the vice versa. It is noted that there is an inverse relation between the caste status of the respondents and their overall problems of marketing vegetables in farmers' market.

Online shopping is a growing area of technology. Establishing a store on the Internet, allows for retailers to expand their market and reach out to consumers who may not otherwise visit the physical store. The convenience of online shopping is the main attraction for the consumers. Unique online payment systems offer easy and safe purchasing from other individuals. Electronic consumers exhibit different buying behaviors such as; cart abandonment. The benefits of shopping online also come with potential risks and dangers that consumers must be aware of. In the future, we can expect online stores to improve their technology tremendously, allowing for an easier and a more realistic shopping experience.

In a significant section of available scholarship on pre-Islamic Bengal, a dominant tendency has been to generalize the patterns of historical trajectories of the great river valleys. This has resulted in many discrepancies, particularly in the context of the plateau-like portions of southwestern Bengal, where, unlike other parts of Bengal, Jainism came to have an entrenched presence during the early medieval period (c.600–1200 ce). Through an analysis of the published archaeological data, this paper attempts to study the social history of Jaina and Brahmanical temples and their linkages with the political processes in a forested frontier of early medieval southwestern Bengal: Purulia. This district, marked with an absence of early historical farming cultures, was an extension of the Chhotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand. During the early medieval period, this district witnessed three coeval and interrelated processes: large-scale construction of Jaina and Brahmanical (primarily Saiva) temples, emergence of a local state, and widespread construction of hero stones. The political elites of the major political centre of the local state that emerged in this area seem to have derived their legitimacy by patronizing Saiva temples, but Jaina temples seem to have provided the primary avenue for the legitimation of local heroes after their death, who were immortalized in hero stones.

Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in the year 2000 after a prolonged struggle for statehood. With a population of about 30 million Jharkhand’s GDP stood at Rs. 33,027 crore in 2002-03 while the per capita GDP was at less than Rs 9,000. Jharkhand has an abundance of
mineral and industrial resources at its disposal. Exploiting these resources to their full potential will aid Jharkhand in achieving considerable growth in its overall economic development. However, Jharkhand has serious challenges to conquer. Poor education and health of its people, rising law and order problem, legacy of being a part of a state where resource allocation was a problem, etc. This study aims at analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of objectively using the government’s own data and comparing Jharkhand with other states. This study presents various aspects of Jharkhand’s economy and their change across time. In each of the aspects, Jharkhand’s status in comparison to other states has been discussed.
Further, a comparative analysis of various districts of Jharkhand has also been conducted. Data from various government and semi-government sources have been used for this analysis. As the sources for data utilized are different, data was not available for the same recent year. The latest available data has been used in the present analysis.
The study is divided into four sections each of which analyses an important area of development of any state. In the first part, we have explored and analyzed the indicators which explicate the quality of governance in Jharkhand. The second section looks into the
knowledge and communication base of Jharkhand. Further, the socio-economic profile of Jharkhand has been discussed in the third section. Finally, in the fourth section of the report, the district wise comparison has been conducted. The states, which are being considered for
comparison, are in one way or the other, related to Jharkhand. We have considered Bihar the parent state of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal- new states that were formed at the same time as Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa, the other neighbors of Jharkhand. In some cases, where relevant, we have also considered states, which have performed significantly well in the area being discussed. The prosperity of any state depends upon its people and the opportunities provided to them. It is the governance that determines the quality of life lived and opportunities that become available to its citizens. This study is a depiction of the current scenario in Jharkhand across different parameters. The comparative analysis aims to highlight the potential and the possible way forward for the state.