-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...

-The Hindu People migrating due to environmental disasters should be accorded ‘refugee’ status in international law An increasing number of people globally are facing displacement due to droughts, famines, rising sea levels and other natural disasters caused by climate change. This class of migrants has been labelled as ‘environmental refugees’ in popular literature. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international body reviewing trends of internal displacement, an estimated 24 million...

-The Hindu The only way out for public policy for environmental damage is to place strong emphasis on individual and social cost of inaction Residents in the already polluted Capital experienced something of a turning point on Diwali. The belaboured, particulate-loaded air was further bombed with firecrackers. Some described the scene as a war zone with active shelling. People were angry not only because they could not physically breathe, but also because...

-IANS Hydropower projects, on Himalayan water resources, can face hazards of glacial lake outbursts that can damage its infrastructure Of the 177 hydropower projects (HPP) located close to Himalayan glaciers over a fifth - including many in India - could be under threat from floods caused by the outbursts of glacial lakes, European researchers have warned. The researchers, from various universities, have charted out a new method for locating the minimum exposure that...

-Livemint.com A World Bank report cautions that the urban poor will bear the brunt of losses if cities don’t become more resilient to natural disasters, shocks, and stresses New Delhi: By 2030, without significant investment into making cities more resilient, climate change may push up to 77 million more urban residents into poverty, said a new report released by the World Bank on Wednesday. The report ‘Investing in Urban Resilience’ by the World...