-The Business Standard Govt's unbalanced food policy has disastrous results Consider the following discrepancies in the farm sector. The country is now the world’s largest exporter of rice, a crop grown with huge quantities of scarce water and heavily subsidised fertilisers. At the same time, it is the leading importer of pulses, which require very little water to grow and fortify the land with nitrogen to reduce the fertiliser need even...
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Camp that provides shelter to villagers and cattle in drought-hit Beed district -Amruta Byatnal
-The Hindu Farmers bring their cattle to camp to provide water and fodder Shidewadi (Maharashtra): It’s Kavita Garje’s 10th day at the cattle camp and she can already predict the conditions for the next 10 months. “It didn’t rain at all this year, so our buffaloes have to be kept here at least till next September. We have no fodder or water for them,” the 13-year-old girl says, as she feeds her...
More »Midnight’s children-Purnima S Tripathi
-Frontline Members of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, treated as criminal tribes by the colonial rulers, have no place to call their own and no land, no rights, and no support from the government. Emaciated, eyes sunken deep into sockets, skin hanging loose, almost gasping for breath, Indro Devi and Sarvnath, a couple in their eighties, lie on polythene sheets in an 8×10 square-foot tent made of rags, by a stinking nullah...
More »Myths about industrial agriculture -Vandana Shiva
-Al Jazeera Organic farming is the "only way to produce food" without harming the planet and people's health. Reports trying to create doubts about organic agriculture are suddenly flooding the media. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, people are fed up of the corporate assault of toxics and GMOs. Secondly, people are turning to organic agriculture and organic food as a way to end the toxic war against the earth and...
More »A risky strategy, born of panic -Siddharth Varadarajan
-The Hindu Building ‘capitalism with Indian characteristics’ means decisions cannot ignore concerns of voters and communities As the economy slows down and the rupee wilts, Manmohan Singh has bitten the ‘reforms’ bullet with both eyes on the credit rating agencies whose negative reports have done much to dampen the ‘animal spirits’ of investors, foreign and native. Last November, when the Congress party made a push to introduce foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail,...
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