-The Hindu How is ethanol extracted? What are the environmental concerns with respect to this process? The story so far: Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India has achieved its target of blending 10% sugarcane-extracted ethanol in petrol, ahead of schedule. Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on the 76th Independence Day, he rooted for energy independence stating that, “we need to be Aatmanirbhar (self-sufficient) in our energy sector”. India is...
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Survey data on poverty and broad policy pointers -R Srinivasan and S Raja Sethu Durai
-The Hindu There needs to be engagement with survey data, but ground-level realities should shape programmatic interventions Based on multidimensional poverty measurement, the Poverty Ratio (Head Count Ratio) in Tamil Nadu declined from 4.89% in 2015-16 to 1.57% in 2020-21, based on the fourth and fifth rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data. Is this too good to believe? Maybe so. Academics have questioned the quality of NFHS data for...
More »India must be quick to tackle challenges of food security, land use - Himangana Gupta & Shweta Prajapati & Ruchika Singh
-Moneycontrol.com Not only population, but several other factors affect the food system, including climate risks and their impact. An IPCC report predicts up to 30 percent decline in rice yields if global temperatures continue to rise India, a country with just 2.4 percent of the world’s total land area, is the largest producer of milk and pulses, and the second largest producer of rice and wheat, as per the United Nations’ Food...
More »Doubling trouble: It’s mid-2022; is it good days yet for farm incomes? -Rajit Sengupta
-Down to Earth The Union government's claim about being on track to double farmers' income sounds hollow as it has not even spent the allocated budget for agrarian schemes in three of the past five years On February 28, 2016 Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to double farmers’ income by 2022-23—his gift to the country in its 75th year of independence. In the six years since then, the Union government has not...
More »The challenges of Gig-Economy -Ashish Kumar Singh & Akash Singh
-CounterCurrent.org According to a NITI Aayog recent report titled ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’ India’s gig workforce, estimated to be at 77 lakh in 2020-21. It is expected to go up to 2.35 crore by 2029-30. Gig worker are defined by NITI Aayog as those engaged in livelihoods outside the traditional employer-employee arrangement. Gig workers can be broadly classified into platform and non-platform-based workers. Platform workers are those whose work...
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