-Down to Earth Hounded by cow vigilantes and trade restrictions, farmers in Uttar Pradesh's border areas abandon their unproductive cattle in Nepalese villages creating havoc there Residents of Semri village in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district drew a plan for "invasion" on April 2, 2018. They called a meeting of farmers and agriculture labourers to take a call on the stray cattle menace. With the state closing down illegal slaughter houses in...

-The Telegraph Many families depend on two entitlements for survival: social security pensions and rations from the public distribution system Particularly vulnerable tribal groups, earlier known as primitive tribal groups, are the sort of people you may never meet unless you take the trouble to look for them. In Jharkhand, they live in small hamlets scattered over the nooks and crannies of the state’s undulating forests. Without a purpose and some local...

-PTI Demands include compensation for drought, increase in MSP Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday assured tribal farmers that their forest land rights claims will be settled by December this year. Fadnavis gave assurance to representatives of the protesting farmers who marched to Azad Maidan here for redressal of their grievances, which include compensation for drought and transfer of forest rights to tribals. A delegation of the protesting tribals met Fadnavis at...

-The Hindu We won’t allow anyone to cut our trees, say the women of Balarampur village For three generations now, and spanning 40 years, Chaturi Sahu, 70, has been unfailingly sending one male member from her family to patrol the nearby Jhinkargadi forest to ensure that its trees and shrubs are untouched. Year after year, her father-in-law, husband and son, who are part of the foot soldiers of Balarampur, a nondescript village in...

-Livemint.com Systematic analysis of groundwater conservation methods must be conducted to forestall the water crisis India’s over-exploitation of groundwater is contributing to—as stated by NITI Aayog—“the worst water crisis in its history”. Groundwater is one of the most important water sources in India accounting for 63% of all irrigation water and over 80% of the rural and urban domestic water supplies. In fact, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)...