-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-Scroll.in The health bill from crop burning is Rs 2 lakh crore annually. India’s five-year air-pollution-related health bill from burning crop stubble can pay for about 700 premier All India Institutes of Medical Sciences or India’s 2019 central government health budget nearly 21 times over, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of data from a new study. Burning of crop residue or stubble remains a key contributor to air pollution over northern India, despite...

-The Hindu Decision to stop the scheme for now was based on opinion that unlike other schemes announced in the budget, this scheme entails cash transfer to beneficiaries, “which could sway them weeks before polling.” Bengaluru: The farm loan waiver scheme of the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government has been stalled temporarily by the Election Commission of India after the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha election came into force. The...

-Down to Earth Gourd has sculpted the culture and traditions of rural India for ages A mellifluous tune breaks the silence as I trudge through a forested hill in the Baiga heartland of Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh. At places the music fuses with the gurgling sound of Burner, a tributary of the Narmada river, and becomes even more enchanting. Entranced, I start following the melody and reach a hut where...

-News18.com Considering how governments have handed forests to destructive industries, why don't these wildlife-first organisations demand the eviction of the Forest Departments from forest lands? Imagine people who live in clearings inside an extensive dense forest, cultivating paddy, harvesting grass, bamboo, and mushrooms, and hunting the occasional deer. They stay awake at night, beating drums to tell their elephant brothers not to come for their hard-earned crop. Once the harvest is over,...