-Down to Earth Ammonia concentration in the atmosphere over India is the highest in the world due to cattle population and excessive fertilizer use, says study A satellite study of airborne ammonia gas has revealed four major Hotspots over productive agricultural regions across the world. Increased atmospheric ammonia is linked to poor air and water quality. Using data from NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder satellite instrument, researchers led by the University of Maryland...
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Battleground Punjab: The story of the missing farmers -Subodh Varma
-The Economic Times A small village called Khanauri in Punjab's Sangrur district has become a macabre Hotspot. People come here to peer down at the Bhakra Main Line canal hoping to catch sight of dead bodies that get held up on the sluice gates. They are not ghouls they are looking for kin or friends who have disappeared. The canal runs unhindered like an arrow for 159 km through Punjab's eastern...
More »The culling fields -TR Shankar Raman
-The Hindu A better approach to man-wildlife conflict management requires an integration of scientific evidence, animal behaviour, and landscape and socio-economic context The difference of views on the killing of wild animals between a former and a sitting Environment Minister of the ruling party — one in favour, the other against — has hit the front pages. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change recently permitted three States, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and...
More »Chained to debt in life and death -A Narayanamoorthy and P Alli
-The Hindu Business Line The only way this story of the Indian farmer will change is if policymakers ensure better remuneration for them The peasant (in India) is born in debt, lives in debt, dies in debt and bequeaths debt. This is what Sir Malcolm Darling, a famous British researcher and writer, wrote in 1925 after studying the condition of undivided Punjab’s peasants. Had Darling been alive today he would have rephrased his...
More »Wayanad farmers get rights for 10 traditional rice varieties -KR Rajeev
-The Times of India Kozhikode: Despite a looming agrarian crisis, farmers in Wayanad have become the guardians of critical agro-biodiversity by nurturing traditional rice varieties which are fast becoming extinct. They have won exclusive farmers' rights for 10 more traditional rice varieties under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (PPV&FR), 2001. With this, the number of rice varieties registered as 'Farmers' varieties of Wayanad' has become 16. Seedcare, an association...
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