-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...

-Scroll.in Ahead of polls, despite the dire situation, there is neither work under employment guarantee scheme nor any cattle camps, fodder depots for livestock. The irony is unmistakable. In the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, which is in the grip of arguably the worst drought since 1972, what stands out is hectic road construction. En route from Jalna to Ambad, a massive machine lays out a spanking new concrete road. Meanwhile, across the...

-Mongabay.com * As the election tempo heats up, the Marathwada districts of Maharashtra are suffering severe drought. * The situation is made worse with the employment guarantee not working and fodder not available for the farm livestock. * Piped water facilities supplied by the government in some villages are not in use because of no water. The irony is unmistakable. In the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, which is in the grip of arguably the...

-The Hindu Business Line With people too busy collecting it, attendance at poll meetings is thin It’s the schedule of water tankers, and not the time and availability of political bigwigs and national leaders, that is determining the timing of election meetings and rallies in Maharashtra’s drought-affected regions. With the drought intensifying and paucity of water rising, over 3,117 water tankers, as against just 391 in March 2018, are plying in 8,000 villages...

  Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...