-Down to Earth India's villages miss a golden chance to become drought-proof as more MGNREGA projects grind to a halt Almost half of India is currently under drought; for many districts this is the second-consecutive drought. Given this, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) should have been the key scheme to not only mitigate impacts of drought but also employ people in distress for earning. But an analysis of...
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PM's pension scheme: Two months into launch, workers not keen, call it poll gimmick -Christina George
-The Indian Express Makhan Lal, a construction worker who is on the verge of quitting work because of a dislocated shoulder, says: “I haven’t heard of Modi’s pension scheme or Rahul Gandhi’s NYAY... what I know is that we will remain poor, this basti will continue to have open sewage and during rains our houses will be under sewer Water.” Chand Lal, 45, was back at his 8×8 feet shanty in...
More »Kumbh brought Allahabad to verge of an epidemic, says NGT -Banjot Kaur
-Down to Earth The tribunal has asked UP chief secretary to immediately act on the mismanaged solid waste from the pilgrimage Both the governments, at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh, claimed to have organised a 'swachh' — clean — Kumbh in the winter of 2018-19, but the National Green Tribunal seems to differ. In fact, the quasi judicial body rang alarm bells on Aprill 22, 2019 about host city Allahabad being on...
More »Farm ponds that dot parched Marathwada may deplete groundWater in the long run -Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar
-The Times of India AURANGABAD: A patchwork of brown fields is visible from the air as you fly into this drought-hit region in rural Maharashtra. But amid the dry land is a growing mosaic of blue and brown squares and rectangles. These are farm ponds: Large earthen structures that have spread across rural Maharashtra in the past five years, thanks to a raft of central and state subsidies. The ponds were conceived...
More »Saurashtra woes: Policy change on check dams leads to Water deficit -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth In the 1990s, non-profits and farmers themselves built check dams; today, the government does it, without proper research or site selection Fifty-four-year old Dineshbhai Babariya has just harvested a 20 quintal cotton crop, his second harvest in the last one year in his four bigha (1.6 acre) farm in the Jasapar village of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. August 2018 was the last time the village in Rajkot district received around 228...
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