The pandemic's first wave had a devastating impact on the livelihoods of rural workers in Bihar (including the self-employed) last year, according to a survey based research, jointly done by economists from Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability at Monash University, Australia and the New Delhi-based Institute for Human Development. A recent press note issued by the authors of the study shows that almost 94.4 percent of the households participating...

Media reports indicate that at the start of the southwest monsoon season, lightning strikes caused the death of over 70 people in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on a single day i.e. 11th July, 2021. Prior to those separate events related to human casualty caused by thunderbolts, eighteen elephants were found dead on a hilltop at Kandali Proposed Reserve Forest situated in Assam's Nagaon district on...

-The Hindu Business Line Total area down 11.5 per cent; coarse cereals, oilseeds planting drops 20% With the south-west monsoon being seven per cent below normal till Friday, sowing of kharif crops continues to be affected. Data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmerss Welfare show that sowing lost its momentum further in terms of percentage. Data showed that a total of 612 lakh hectares (lh) had been covered till date compared...

-The Hindu Business Line It observed that world pulses trade grew from 13 ml t to 17 ml t over the past decade The global pulse market that reached a volume of 92 million tons in 2020 - following an annual growth of 3 per cent during the previous decade – is expected to increase by 22 ml t by 2030, says OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030 released earlier this week. Almost half of...

-Newsclick.in Prices of basic sources of protein like meat, eggs, pulses, and cooking oils have zoomed up, as has the cost of cooking gas. Prices of some essential food items have jumped up steadily over the past few months causing devastation of nutritional levels of families and denting already stressed budgets. Adding to this misery is the inordinate hikes in cooking gas prices which have sky-rocketed by 46% since subsidies were all...