-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...

-Down to Earth * Day-long Conclave organised by CSE in New Delhi; about 50 experts from across India participate * Experts recogniselinkages between India’s growing burden of diseases and the food produced intensively using chemicals as well as ‘bad food’ — ultra-processed foods high in fats, sugar or salt (HFSS), marketed rampantly * Strong pesticide management billneeded. Class I pesticides, extremely hazardous and toxic, must be phased out * Regulations needed to reduce misuse...

-The Indian Express The pollution problem is not merely a technological issue, but a social concern. Air pollution is a silent killer in India, especially in the country’s northern belt. Eighteen per cent of the world’s population lives in India, but the country bears 26 per cent of the global disease burden due to air pollution. According to estimates of the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative — published last year in...

-Down to Earth The use of tax incentives to attract investments is prevalent around the world. However, there is no definitive data on the global magnitude of incentives granted because not all countries collect and publicly report such data and there is no common methodology for reporting across all countries. Rough estimate by Action Aid (2013) pegs the incentives granted by developing countries from corporate income tax (CIT) at $138 billion....

-DNA The Niti Aayog’s recent report on ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’ rightly recognises that the multidimensional determinants of undernutrition are inadequately reflected in policymaking. It argues that there must be convergent action with annual health, nutrition and sanitation plans being made in an integrated manner for all districts. In the case of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which is the main programmatic platform through which nutrition outcomes are to...