Frans Lanting
From the blurb: Around the world, people are increasingly facing a future that is crowded and hot, subject to violent weather extremes and a changing climate, where the rich and poor inhabit separate spheres and governments are unable or unwilling to confront these most vital challenges. For India, this reality is the very tangible present….
Read More about New book: Elemental India : The Natural World in Crisis
George Varghese
The rains have let us down terribly this year. There were farmers in our area who did not bother planting their rice crop when they realized that it wasn’t going to rain much this year and then there were others that took a chance and planted but didn’t bother harvesting since the crop was a disaster….
Read More about Weathering The Change - A Farmer’s Diary of 2015
Morvarid Fernandez
Morvarid Fernandez writes: Our crops failed, cattle graze the dry paddy straw, and fields remain fallow because there is not enough water. Bore wells are deeper, the lines longer, and the black blister bug – usually a bane – simply did not appear last year. The monsoon of 2015, you ask. But there just wasn’t one….
Read More about Winds of change – A view from NersaHaving endured three successive droughts, the region of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh continues to be on edge. Governments in both the states have failed to do their bit. Here’s a press conference video and interview of Yogendra Yadav, who leads the Swaraj Abhiyan movement, which recently held an extended survey of the region….
Read More about Video & Report: Yogendra Yadav on the unfolding famine in Bundelkhand and the need for a farmers’ politics
The Times of India reports: Distress conditions forced about 6 lakh people from Rayalaseema, where the major crop is groundnut, to move to cities in 2015. It works out to migration of around 1,600 persons per day last year. Although the rate dipped in November and December due to the ongoing cultivation, the trend continues….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #79IndiaSpend reports: Indian farms depend too much on increasingly uncertain rainfall: while there was not enough rain during the pre-monsoon kharif season (July-October) last year, there has been vastly excess rainfall during this rabi season (October-March). For instance, Eastern Rajasthan, the farm belt of the desert state, had more than 14 times the normal rainfall during this pre-monsoon season….
Read More about A Farmer’s Life Crisis — And India’s Farming Predicament
southasia.oneworld.net
With the formation of WTO, a new international economic world order came into being. This has greatly affected the fate of farmers in developing countries. Writer and policy analyst Devinder Sharma elaborates on the impact of the continuing agrarian crisis in India and calls for a concerted effort in arresting the escalation of the crisis….
Read More about Video: Why are farmers dying?
Dead mango trees at the author's farm during the drought of 2011-2015
Uma Shankari
Chittoor-based farmer and activist Uma Shankari writes: After the year 2010, for the first time we’ve had good rains; in fact exceptionally good rains, a side effect of the Chennai disaster. My husband used to say, “If Chennai drowns, we’ll be saved”. This time it came true. We’ve not seen such heavy rains in twenty, thirty years….
Read More about Did Marx call the peasant an idiot? He was right, I am an idiot.
Reuters
(Note: The weather is changing, adding to the woes of the Indian farmer, who is already in a state of crisis. Even as the pundits split hairs over climate change, for the farmer, it seems the writing is on the wall. In Weathering the change, we present a short series presenting the farmer’s perspective on the impact of these changes.)…
Read More about Series: Weathering the change – Part 1
In this tribute, Colin Todhunter writes: Bhaskar Save died on 24 October 2015 at age 93. Emphasising self-reliance at the farm/village level, Save was regarded as the ‘Gandhi of natural farming’. Masanobu Fukuoka, the legendary Japanese organic farmer once described Bhaskar Hiraji Save’s farm as “the best in the world, even better than my own!”…
Read More about Obituary: The Passing of Bhaskar Save: What The ‘Green Revolution’ Did for India
The stories in this yearbook highlight efforts by rural and urban communities across India to take back ownership of their water resources. India Water Portal Water sustains lives and livelihoods. It is a precious and finite resource that, in future years, is likely to become the main bone of contention between peoples, states and nations….
Read More about E-book: Water warriors – Stories on people and their relationship with waterAzim Premji University Azim Premji University, Bangalore, is holding a non-residential introductory course, Understanding Rural India: Life and Livelihoods at the Base of the Pyramid, aimed at those who are relatively new to the development sector. Dates: Nov 16 – 26, 2015 Venue: Bangalore Rural India is undergoing unprecedented transformations, which have profound impact on the…
Read More about Course: Understanding Rural IndiaStop the killing fields Farmers are in a terrible situation, with no water for crops, livestock or drinking. If we dismiss this year as a freak weather year, we will never make the necessary corrections Sunita Narain, Editor – Down To Earth magazine This is our season of despair. This year, it would seem, the gods…
Read More about Down to Earth issue on the elusive monsoonTimes of India COIMBATORE: Just a fortnight after the civic body elections, a village panchayat in Coimbatore has decided to offer free electricity to its residents within the next five years. Having already won international acclaim through its unique welfare schemes and energy self-sufficiency drives, Odanthurai near Mettupalayam has begun efforts to develop a corpus…
Read More about Odanthurai – Tamil Nadu’s energy self sufficient village
Rohini Mohan reports: In under a year, the Modi government has begun to undo policies of fair land acquisition, undermine environmental protection and reverse the fight for tribal rights. The finance, environment and rural-development ministers, and Modi himself, have called these safeguards to protect people’s property, the environment and tribal rights “roadblocks” to economic growth….
Read More about Narendra Modi’s war on the environmentExcerpted from the Thrissur Declaration, of 16 October 2014: We are in an era of systemic crisis – of economy, food, energy, climate and livelihoods. In India this is characterised by a deep agrarian crisis, declining social indicators, unemployment and underemployment, environmental degradation, lack of access to basic services and distress migration especially in rural…
Read More about Thrissur Declaration: Alternative technologies and organisational forms for social transformation
Basudev Mahapatra writes: Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, has “delinked forest clearance from clearance by the National Wild Life Board and halved NBWL clearance requirements from 10km to 5km around forest reserves, besides emasculating the Board by replacing eminent experts and concerned NGOs with rubber stamps. He has also relaxed procedures of the Forest Conservation Act….
Read More about Rohini Mohan: The Modi Government’s war on environment
Basic protections to safeguard the environment, that were not particularly strong to begin with, are being wiped out. While in general, faster moving transparent government processes are required, the Modi government’s predilection for protecting private corporations at the expense of public welfare, does not bode well for the environment nor the well-being of India’s peoples….
Read More about Modi and the Environment: The 100 day report
Jay Mazoomdar writes: Narendra Modi does mean business. So his government has gone about eliminating the policy paralyses that many claimed ailed the previous regime. This meant dismantling roadblocks that hamper economic growth. But here is what also happens to be under fire: laws and rules that safeguard India’s environment, forests, wildlife, and tribal rights….
Read More about 11 environmental disasters Narendra Modi blessed in his first 100 days
Papri Sri Raman reports: The new environment minister, Prakash Javadekar, met Defense Minister Jaitley on June 10 and later announced a policy that would enable India’s border states with Pakistan, China and Burma to clear defense projects falling within 100kms of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), without approaching the union government for environment clearances….
Read More about Environment Under Siege in New India
