-ThePrint.in Mihir Shah, who headed the panel that drafted National Water Policy, says crop diversification, without endangering national food security, is important for resolving water crisis. New Delhi: The focus of public procurement on predominantly wheat and rice dates back to the early years of the Green Revolution, and this is what enabled India to build a large buffer stock of grain. However, there is no doubt that this overwhelming focus on just...
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Water is not a commodity and financial asset to be exploited, says UN human rights expert
--Press release by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights dated 20th October, 2021 GENEVA (20 October 2021) – Water is increasingly being treated as a mere commodity and even as a financial asset, a UN human rights expert told the UN General Assembly today, undermining the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation and the sustainability of the environment. Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the Special Rapporteur on the...
More »Dr. Mihir Shah, Distinguished Professor & Chair, Water Science & Policy Programme at Shiv Nadar University, interviewed by Mitali Mukherjee (TheWire.in)
-TheWire.in In conversation with the chair of the committee that devised the New Water Policy, which proposes a shift in focus towards the long-neglected demand-side management of water. India’s new National Water Policy (NWP) argues that limits are now being reached on solving the country’s water problem from the supply side. The seven-member Mihir Shah Committee proposes a shift in focus towards the long-neglected demand-side management of water. Mitali Mukherjee spoke with Shah...
More »Debunking the myth of APMCs regulating agricultural marketing in a real world
When one of the three farm laws i.e., The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 was enacted last year, it was argued by its proponents that the legislation would allow the farmers to sell their produce (and the traders to purchase that produce) outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committee-APMC mandis after crop harvesting. In a way, that particular piece of legislation was enacted to end the...
More »Are we witnessing depeasantisation in Indian agriculture?
The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...
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