-Down to Earth Debt-ridden farmers have to either rent or buy the machines, which pose several threats to their next crop Hamir Singh, 53, who holds a 14-acre farm in Kalajhar village in Sangrur district of Punjab, had decided to toe the line, but didn’t work for him. He followed the ban on crop residue burning and tried using new technology like the rotavator, which has rotating blades that chop the straw...

-The Indian Express Every October, the Air quality in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana plummets as farmers set the leftover stubble and loose straw on fire after paddy is harvested using combines. And this time, too, the smoke signals from the fields are ominous Ambala, Karnal, Patiala: “A matchbox costs just Rs 2, you know,” says Ram Pal Rana, as he collects and piles up dry straw on one side of his...

-The Indian Express Loss of mature trees cannot be made up by planting new ones. Forest Department shows how not to grow a forest. In the spontaneous protests that have erupted in Delhi over the felling of over 16,000 trees in government redevelopment yards, the response from the authorities seems to be: The numbers are exaggerated and, in any case, we’ll plant more trees than are being felled. In a city with the...

-The Times of India SURAT/ NEW DELHI: Surat is showing the way to Delhi and other big cities that are struggling to manage garbage spilling out of ‘dhalaos’ and filling the air with foul smell. The city’s municipal body has installed 43 underground garbage bins, each of which can contain up to 1.5 tonnes of waste as a part of the Smart City Mission and these are fitted with sensors to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A new study by Nasa scientists has concluded that there is a strong link between agricultural fires in Punjab and Haryana and PM2.5 levels in Delhi during the post-monsoon months of October and November. PM2.5 concentrations in Delhi, which is downwind to Punjab and Haryana, show a coherent increase — rising often from as low as 50 micrograms per cubic metres (µg/ m3) before the...