-Livemint.com Three-fourths of India’s population depend on cereals from states that over-exploit Groundwater, finds a study. This raises concerns about the country’s food security The farmer protests near Delhi have brought renewed attention to the agricultural practices of northern India, Groundwater use in particular. A new study finds that states where Groundwater reserves are at critical levels, such as Punjab, form the major source of cereals for around 76% of India’s population....

-The Indian Express If we truly want to ensure the livelihoods of our farmers and provide safe, healthy, nutritious food for our consumers, it is imperative to make policies that go beyond the productivity trope and populist posturing. Proponents of the three new farm laws have claimed that they will engender competition in agricultural markets and will give farmers a choice to sell wherever they like. The opponents of these laws, including...

-TheThirdPole.net Over thirty years since high levels of arsenic was found in Groundwater in West Bengal, little has been done to avert a slow-burn health crisis In the Indo-Gangetic plains, there are many widow-villages where the men have died from drinking water laced with arsenic. Women often come to the area to marry and so are only affected later in life. In India, over one million people have died in the last...

-Down to Earth Complex Groundwater systems cannot be controlled or predicted, but need to be better managed and made more efficient The Central Ground Water Authority’s (GGWA) latest guideline — banning the grant of no-objection certificates (NoC) for extracting Groundwater to all new industries coming up in ‘over-exploited’ areas — is yet another duplication of previous failed policy regulations. By implication, the new regulatory policy is not pretentious about looking at the problem...

-Down to Earth The programme can provide a safety net for the poor, not just in COVID-19 times, but for times to come In these darkest days of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — when jobs and economies have collapsed — 56 million households got work in the past three months and these jobs provided relief. This was under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which perhaps is the...