-Scroll.in Suranga is a horizontal tunnel-like well excavated in a hillside. Even as Kerala reels under severe drought, Gangadhar Rao never misses a day to irrigate thousands of areca nut trees, coconut trees and pepper plants on his 30 acres of farmland. Rao is a farmer from Bedadka Panchayath in Kerala’s northernmost district of Kasaragod and depends on Suranga for all his water needs — irrigation and domestic — round the year. Suranga is...

-AlJazeera.com How rising debts, pesticides and erratic rainfall are pushing some farmers in southern India to suicide. Karnataka: Farmers have worked the land of southern India for more than 10,000 years, making use of its fertile soil and abundant rains. Mahatma Gandhi placed Indian farmers at the centre of his vision for independence. In his 1909 book about Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), he argued that farmers had "managed with the same kind...

-The Hindu Business Line Bengaluru: “There is no wateror fodder this year, and it has become tough to manage my three cows,” says Nagamma, a dairy farmer at Maradevanahalli village in Maddur taluk. The cows and her one-acre farm are her only sources of livelihood. “The milk yields have reduced: these days I get only about 5-6 litres, against 10-12 litres earlier,” she adds. The Maradevanahalli village panchayat provides about 200 litres...

-Down to Earth Meat eating is not the key issue, it is the amount that is consumed and the manner in which it is produced. This is where India differs. Recently at the release of our book First Food: Culture of Taste, which discusses the link between biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods, I was asked a question. “Why do you not, as an environmentalist espousing the cause of traditional and local diets that...

-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...