-Down to Earth Aggressive sugarcane farming contaminates land, water The Union government intends to increase the amount of ethanol in the energy mix to lower the country’s dependence on imported oil and carbon footprint, as well as stabilise petrol prices. India currently blends about 8.5 per cent ethanol in petrol. The government is targeting a 10 per cent ethanol blend by 2022 and a 20 per cent blend (E20) by 2025. E20 can save...
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As Higher-Caste Influential Hindus Turn Vegetarian, States, Govts Try To Enforce Vegetarianism -Prannv Dhawan & Sabah Gurmat
-Article-14.com Barring Rajasthan and Punjab, meat-consumption in India has risen over the decade. But with higher-caste, politically dominant Hindus turning to vegetarianism, at least 23 states now have beef bans, 15 states disallow even eggs in midday meals and Air India has largely turned vegetarian. India's enforced vegetarianism and how it violates the Constitution and rule of law. Ludhiana & Mumbai: A few weeks before India’s Covid-19 second wave, one of the...
More »What procurement data tells us about India’s farm law opposition -Arjun Srinivas & howindialives.com
-Livemint.com Amid a bumper wheat crop, India’s farmers sold more wheat to the government than ever before. Government procurement has only grown in recent years, making farmers wary of any attempt to dial back the role of the state in the farm sector This rabi marketing season has seen the highest procurement of wheat by government agencies in history. At 43 million tonnes, this is 33% higher than the average for the...
More »Minimum Support Prices in India: Distilling the Facts -Prankur Gupta, Reetika Khera, and Sudha Narayanan
--Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, JANUARY-JUNE, 2021 Abstract: In recent years in India, minimum support price (MSP) and government procurement, especially of paddy and wheat, have been discussed widely, but these discussions have often drawn on evidence that is dated and incomplete. Consequently, such discussions have clouded the facts, resulting in a large number of factoids. According to these popular misconceptions, very few farmers (6 per cent only) benefit...
More »Why do ASHA workers in India earn so little? -Shruti Ambast
-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...
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