-Down to Earth Rainfall status yo-yos from 23% deficit to 20% excess in a month Farmers in Madhya Pradesh, who had been craving rain, are now afraid of too much of it. Their crops of maize and soyabean have either been destroyed or have turned yellow due to the rains. Flat fields have turned slushy. Crop seedlings have been destroyed due to soil erosion in the state’s hilly areas. Bunds meant for paddy...
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Doubling trouble: It’s mid-2022; is it good days yet for farm incomes? -Rajit Sengupta
-Down to Earth The Union government's claim about being on track to double farmers' income sounds hollow as it has not even spent the allocated budget for agrarian schemes in three of the past five years On February 28, 2016 Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to double farmers’ income by 2022-23—his gift to the country in its 75th year of independence. In the six years since then, the Union government has not...
More »UP headed towards drought? Less than normal rainfall in 96% districts -Vivek Mishra and Aryan Kapoor
-Down to Earth Police stop farmers from using tube wells to irrigate their fields India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, appears headed for a drought. Seventy-two of its 75 districts (96 per cent) recorded ‘below normal’ rainfall till July 20, 2022, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) data. Fifty-nine of the 75 districts recorded ‘extremely low’ rainfall. These districts are suffering a ‘large deficit’, which means they received less than 60 per cent...
More »DTE Explains: The science of cloudbursts -Preetha Banerjee
-Down to Earth Telangana Chief Minister said cloudbursts may be a 'foreign conspiracy' during his visit to flood-hid Bhadrachalam India, especially its Himalayan states Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are devastated by cloudbursts several times moslty during the monsoon season. Flash floods caused by a cloudburst in Uttarakhand in 2013, killing thousands of people, is one of the worst natural disasters the country recorded since the 2004 tsunami. Climate change has been making these...
More »Monsoon 2022: Agriculture sector shed nearly 8 million jobs in June -Richard Mahapatra
-Down to Earth Sluggish monsoon; area sown down 15%; rural employment stares at meltdown There are disturbing signals of a potential meltdown of the country’s biggest employer and also food producer as the southwest monsoon enters its second week of the second month. Kharif sowing was down 15 per cent by July 7, in comparison to last year for the same period. Altogether, farmers didn’t sow in 6.3 million hectares (Ha) of farms. Sowing...
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