-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-Newsclick.in Contrary to the claims made in the official report about increased forest cover in India, experts revealed that data was manipulated to create a different picture than reality. Nimli (Rajasthan): Amid increasing challenges of climate change, it may surprise many that India is manipulating data to show increasing forest cover and misrepresenting what forest in the real sense should be. Experts have questioned it and raised the issue of how the...

-Newsclick.in Slope destabilisation, soil erosion and sequestered carbon loss have increased, according to Ravi Chopra. Noted Dehradun-based environmentalist Ravi Chopra recently resigned as the chairman of the Supreme Court (SC)-appointed High Powered Committee (HPC) overseeing the environmental impact of the Narendra Modi government’s Rs 12,000 crore 889-km Char Dham highway widening project in Uttarakhand.  The Char Dham project, one of the largest road-widening projects in the Himalayan region, intends to connect the four...

-Newsclick.in India's recorded forest cover stands at 77.53 million ha. The forest cover on these lands is estimated to be 51.66 million ha- as much as 34% of the area classified as forests (25.87 million ha) is missing in the assessment. A Down To Earth (DTE) analysis has revealed many holes in the forest cover estimations of the recently released The India State of Forest Report 2021 (ISFR 2021). As per DTE,...

-Down to Earth According to a DTE analysis, there are states where over 30-50 per cent of the land classified as forests is ‘missing’ from the government’s assessment The India State of Forest Report 2021 (ISFR 2021), released recently, has a huge hole in its estimations, according to a new analysis done by Down To Earth. The analysis, which appears as the cover story in the February 16 issue of the magazine,...