-Hindustan Times Earlier this week, the ministry released a user manual for online submission of an undertaking on no increase in pollution load due to expansion, on its Parivesh website. The environment ministry has allowed companies operating in several industries, including some polluting ones, to expand capacities on the basis of a self-certification that this will not “increase the pollution load”, creating the room for potential misdeclaration (and misuse), especially in light...

-The Indian Express Apart from repeal of farm laws, farmers are demanding guaranteed minimum support prices, which have no legal backing. A look at what the implications would be if the govt did provide the guarantee Farmer unions protesting on Delhi’s borders are raising two fundamental demands. The first is for repealing the three agricultural reform laws enacted by the Centre. The second is to provide legal guarantee for the minimum support...

-IndiaSpend.com The new farm laws that aim to double farmers’ income in two years by deregulating agricultural markets may further widen the inequalities in the sector, shows our analysis of similar legislations from the past. By weakening the government’s price guarantee system, the laws may end up hurting small and poor farmers, who form 80% of the sector and 23% of those who live below the poverty line, say critics. The privatisation...

-The Indian Express UP mills have, in the current 2019-20 sugar season (October-September) as of May 8, crushed 10,565.49 lakh quintals of cane and produced 120.01 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar. With cane payment arrears to farmers crossing Rs 14,200 crore, sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh have sought a cash subsidy bailout from the state government to enable them to discharge their outstanding dues. “In this hour of deep crisis, we look upon...

-The Indian Express More than 90 per cent of the cane returns are spent by farmers. as cultivation cost and for repayment of crop loans. So how would these farmers survive for a year or more without receiving their entire produce amount by a sugar mill? The Sugar Industry was unanimous in hailing the push given by the Narendra Modi government for the production of ethanol. The policy, which was unveiled...