-Down to Earth Successive Droughts lead to a substantial and unsustainable expansion of cropland at the expense of forested lands “Droughts are misery in slow motion” with impacts even deeper than previously believed. Although floods pose major economic threats, water scarcity and drought may be causing long-term harm in ways that are poorly understood and inadequately documented, claims Uncharted waters: the new economics of water scarcity and variability, a report by...

-Down to Earth A new study is focusing on identifying vulnerable farmers in Punjab, Maharashtra and Telangana, the three states that experience high rate of suicide In India, farmer suicide is an issue that has been talked about widely. The cases of farmers’ suicide rose by 42 per cent between 2014 and 2015. In 2015, one farmer committed suicide every hour. The latest report of the National Crime Bureau (NCB) shows that...

-IndiaClimateDialogue.net In north Bihar, where floods devastate standing crops with increasing regularity in an era of climate change, a marginalised community is fighting all odds to protect an indigenous flood-resistant variety of rice. Sahorwa village is caught between the embankments of two major rivers in north Bihar. Between the Kosi river’s western embankment and Kamla Balan river’s eastern embankment, this village of 110 Musahar families remains flooded for seven to eight months...

-Scroll.in Notified in September, the rules will facilitate the development of wetlands as real estate, industrial sites and garbage dump After ignoring repeated directions from the Supreme Court to notify stricter rules to protect the country’s wetlands, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has gone and done just the opposite. On September 26, it published the Wetlands (Conservation & Management) Rules, 2017 – replacing the older rules dating back to...

-The Indian Express To suggest that demonetisation improved rural wages on the basis of rise in income of some workers is misleading. It halted the recovery of the rural economy, which had begun after the 2016 monsoon. There is now a consensus that the economy has been slowing down and is headed for a hard landing. Many who matter have spoken out and as Yashwant Sinha points out (‘I need to speak...