-Newsclick.in After the Union Government announced a mission to explore mining the Indian ocean floor for rare earth minerals in this year’s budget, environment conservationists and oceanographers in India are joining global calls for a moratorium on deep sea mining. April 9, Bengaluru: Indian activists have joined worldwide environment conservationists and oceanographers in opposing the recently announced Deep Ocean Mission by the Government of India. The Mineral Inheritors Rights Association (MIRA) – an...

-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable LIvelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...

-The Indian Express Today, Satabhaya is an island of sorts. For all facilities, including ration, those left behind have to cross a 5 km stretch that includes a narrow unpaved road and a small creek inhabited by crocodiles. Satabhaya (kendrapara): This 17-km stretch along the coast in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, which was once home for nearly 700 families, now stands in solitude, a vast expanse covered in sand as far as the...

-The Hindu There seems to be a shift from prioritising expressways and megaports to agriculture and forests Environmental promises have made a visible entry into Tamil Nadu’s politics, along with a guarded valourisation of farmer and fisher rights over big-ticket infrastructure and industrial projects. All key parties in the 2021 Assembly polls barring the AIADMK dedicated a section for “environmental protection” in their manifestos. Setting aside the justified cynicism about fulfillment of...

-Hindustan Times Studies that measure the contribution of MGNREGS towards improving the adaptive capacity of the beneficiary households have remained few and far between. While the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been a valuable employment tool and safety net, as seen in the migrant crisis, its role in building ecosystems resilient to the climate crisis is being increasingly recognised. There is now an urgent need to bring upfront...