-Mongabay.com * As the election tempo heats up, the Marathwada districts of Maharashtra are suffering severe drought. * The situation is made worse with the employment guarantee not working and fodder not available for the farm livestock. * Piped water facilities supplied by the government in some villages are not in use because of no water. The irony is unmistakable. In the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, which is in the grip of arguably the...
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Rural India buying less of consumer products due to falling income -Viveat Susan Pinto & Shally Seth Mohile
-Business Standard Falling incomes and longer winter to translate into lower demand for at least some months The new financial year is not much cheer to companies which generate a large chunk of sales in rural India. Their chief executives say slowing economic growth and falling rural wages are leading to a sharp fall in demand, one that will reflect in the next few quarters. A longer winter season has delayed offtake of...
More »Drought in Rajasthan: From unemployment to school dropouts, Barmer sees exodus for works as crops fail India -Sandeep Kumar Meel
-Firstpost.com Rajasthan’s relationship with Summer is not a pleasant one. The shortage of water in the region only adds to the misery of the people. Even before the onset of Summer, over 5,000 villages in nine districts in Rajasthan — Barmer, Churu, Pali, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jalore, Jodhpur, Hanumangarh and Nagaur were declared ‘drought-affected’ by the state government. The drought in this area affects the economy of the region as employment options...
More »Wetland authority to ban Summer paddy cultivation to save groundwater -Keshav Agrawal
-The Times of India PILIBHIT: Raising concern over depleting groundwater, State Wetland Authority (SWA) has decided to ban the cultivation of Summer paddy that survives only on the groundwater. According to an estimate of the state agriculture department, Summer paddy — the transplantation of which has already been started — is produced in around 3.5 lakh hectares in more than 20 districts of western UP stretched up to the Tarai region. The decision...
More »Number crunching helps farmers manage water -Manu Moudgil
-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...
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