The Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round), which was released recently, informs one about farm households' income in the crop year 2018-19 and indebtedness in 2019 (as on the date of survey), among other things. Prior to the recent report, Land and Livestock Holding Surveys (LHS) and Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households used to be...

-Down to Earth  Reservoirs in Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Madhya Pradesh have less than normal storage  At least 23 out of 130 reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission (CWC) were full, according to a bulletin released September 16, 2021 evening. All four reservoirs in Telangana monitored by CWC were full to their capacity as of September 16. Eight out of 25 dams in Maharashtra; three each in Karnataka, Jharkhand...

-TheWire.in Apple growers feel that instead of incentivising big corporates, the state government should instead help farmers build cold storages. Chandigarh: The main argument of those rallying behind the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s controversial farm laws; that the free market economy will reward farmers, faces a major dent in the wake of the crashing market price of the apple crop in Himachal Pradesh.  The Rs 5,000 crore apple business in the hilly state,...

-Down to Earth blog The ecology of Himachal Pradesh’s hydropower hub is too fragile for such projects “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much about climate change. Today, we have no excuses,” Desmond Tutu, South African theologian, had said. The recent landslides in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district brought back focus on how 40 per cent of the state is geologically ‘highly sensitive’, according to a report...

-TheWire.in It has been proven time and again that large 'development' projects, involving the blasting of fragile hills and constraining the flow of rivers, cause huge loss of lives and livelihoods in the Himalayan region. Two big landslides in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh which made national headlines have re-emphasised the need for ecologically protective development in geologically fragile and vulnerable hills. On August 11, a massive landslide on National Highway 5,...