-Article-14.com Over 3 years to 2020, as India’s farm crisis deepened, 18 insurance companies running Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s crop-insurance scheme rejected nearly a million claims. As pandemic and pestilence devastated farms, we reveal how the scheme’s complex fine print frustrates farmers and disregards individual loss Hisar, Haryana: As 2020 began, Haryana cotton farmer Ramandeep sensed it would be harsher than the previous years: the winter rains were scanty, withering his crop...

-Countercurrents.org Since November 26, 2020, lakhs of farmers and workers have been in their continuous sit-in protest at different points around Delhi Border. On April 26 it will complete 5 months. And the human-cost is enormous: 400+ deaths. But braving death, terrible cold, rain, storm and now around 40°+ at noon, threat of covid19, the farmers and workers are continuing; after all they work in the open fields through tough weather...

-Newsclick.in The jacking up of prices of a universal intermediary while at the same time cutting down on subsidies that could potentially insulate segments of the working people from the acceleration of inflation is proof of the fact. The official wholesale price index for March 2021, which was released a few days ago shows it to be 7.39% higher than for March 2020. Such a high rate of inflation has not been...

Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-The Indian Express The pandemic revealed the precarious state of India’s informal sector. Localised production, trade and markets offer a better alternative to existing paradigm of development. Another wave of COVID, another round of lockdowns, another long journey back home for migrant workers. If there is one lesson we are learning after a year of COVID-19, it is that we have not learnt any lessons, at least not the crucial ones. 2020 exposed...