What is rural and what is urban is largely an artefact of definition and relative. See the table below. Most of India's 'rural' population resides in villages that contain between 500 and 5,000 inhabitants. Some argue that in other countries, many of these villages would be classified as urban. These studies point out that if India were to be a little more liberal in its definition of urban areas (minimum...
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Outsider in own home, Maharashtra village wrests control of forest produce sale by Jaideep Hardikar
If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...
More »Second green revolution is the need of the hour by Kunal Bose
The government will certainly not indulge in self congratulation for agriculture recording a growth of 5.4 per cent to 232.07 million tonnes in 2010-11 as this is happening on a low production base of 218.11 million tonnes last year when the country experienced the worst south-west monsoon since 1972. In fact, the major concern of the government is farm sector’s niggardly growth of 2.8 per cent in the first four...
More »World must better protect forests in face of looming water scarcity, UN forum warns
With 1.8 billion people threatened by absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population facing potential shortages, countries must better protect and manage forests to ensure the provision of clean water to vulnerable communities, a United Nations-backed forum warned today. “Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle,” said UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forestry Department Assistant Director...
More »50 million 'environmental refugees' by 2020, experts say
Fifty million "environmental refugees" will flood into the global north by 2020, fleeing food shortages sparked by climate change, experts warned at a major science conference that ended here Monday. "In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees," University of California, Los Angeles professor Cristina Tirado said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). "When people are...
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