-The Hindu In the cotton belt of Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district, pesticide poisoning through inhalation has caused 21 deaths in three months. Serish Nanisetti reports on the deadly cocktail of absent regulation, government apathy, and farmers’ desperation that continues to claim lives Geeta Bandu Sonule doesn’t cry any more. Not even when she relives the final moments of her husband Chandrakant Bandu Sonule (40), who died two months ago, after spraying pesticide on...
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Drought and now pest attacks: Double danger stalks Odisha's rice fields, its farming mainstay -Priya Ranjan Sahu
-Scroll.in A severe shortage of government-distributed pesticides aggravated the crop loss from attacks by brown planthoppers. A twin calamity has struck farmers in Odisha in recent weeks. A moderate to severe drought has affected paddy crops on more than 3.1 lakh hectares of land in over 6,000 villages across 15 districts. In addition, an attack by brown planthoppers – insects that feed on rice plants – has destroyed paddy fields on...
More »Drought of management -Asha Ramachandran
-The Statesman The ongoing flood situation in several parts of peninsular India has left people confused. Just a few months ago, the states were declared drought-hit with a severe drinking water crisis. Yet, images of the 2015 floods in Chennai are still fresh in one’s memory. Reports of the recent floods in Bangalore and Mumbai poured in even as the region was declared to be facing the worst drought in recorded...
More »New Recommendations to Regulate Online Hate Speech Could Pose More Problems Than Solutions -Amber Sinha
-TheWire.in The T.K. Viswanathan committee’s recommendations could prove to be dangerous for free speech if acted upon without resolving its flaws. It was reported last week that an expert committee headed by T.K. Viswanathan, former secretary general of Lok Sabha, recommended that the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Information Technology Act be amended to include stringent penal provisions regarding online hate speech. While this report has...
More »Face the decline -Himanshu
-The Indian Express To suggest that demonetisation improved rural wages on the basis of rise in income of some workers is misleading. It halted the recovery of the rural economy, which had begun after the 2016 monsoon. There is now a consensus that the economy has been slowing down and is headed for a hard landing. Many who matter have spoken out and as Yashwant Sinha points out (‘I need to speak...
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