-ThePrint.in Prior to 2014, Indian farmers mostly organised small protests at the state or local level. Modi govt’s inactions on its promises made farmers go national. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Narendra Modi promised to increase farmers’ income. Yet after coming to power, his government did little towards this promise throughout its first tenure. Recently, however, the Modi government passed three “historic” bills purported to alleviate the woes of India’s...

-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...

-Down to Earth Farmers across the globe are quitting their business, while the rural youth population is increasing. Who will grow our food? In 2019, the world started talking about a structural crisis impacting the planet’s most critical job —food production. The world’s food demand is rising but the number of people quitting, or not joining, farming is consistently growing. This raises an existential question: who will produce the food? In 2016, the...

-Down to Earth A village in outer Delhi is sinking in wastewater overflowing from the Najafgarh drain. That’s because of construction over a wetland, which has blocked the natural water channels. Extreme rainfall has worsened the crisis If you wished to enter Raota village, on the Delhi-Haryana border in the national capital’s southwest district, you would have to wade through knee-deep wastewater. Roads there resembled a sewer; people used boats to commute. Wastewater...

-Down to Earth Study can go long way in pinpointing future hot spots for climate-induced migration Human migration due to changing climate happens primarily in middle income and agricultural-dependent countries, a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on September 14, 2020, has said. The impacts of climate change that caused migration of people were mainly changes in temperature, rainfall variability and rapid onset events like storms, cyclones and floods, the...