-Scroll.in Growing the traditional maize and soya bean crops is no longer economically viable. “The land is thirsty, the Korku is hungry,” goes the refrain of the Korku Adivasis in the Satpura forest in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district. An unrelenting drought since 2014 has parched the Korku farmland, driving a population of over 40,000 spread across 100-odd villages to desperation. In Khari village, for example, more than half the farmers have been forced...
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India uses up more groundwater than US and China -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India Right on the edge of the Ganga basin that spans 11 Indian states lies Naujhil block, a few kilometres west of the Yamuna in UP's Mathura district. You would think this is a blessed location with plentiful water all round. With its 17 tributaries, including the Yamuna, Ganga's catchment area has about 525 billion cubic metres (bcm) of surface water and about 171 bcm of groundwater. On average,...
More »A mango plantation in Jharkhand shows how MGNREGA can really empower rural families -Inayat Sabhikhi
-Scroll.in Instead of wages for a short period of time, the family running the project in Lanka village will create an asset for life. Mahavir Parhaiya’s household in the remote village of Lanka in Latehar district of Jharkhand is bustling with activity. They are busy working on setting up a mango plantation on what was once a barren plot near their house, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...
More »Waiving loans doesn't end the distress -Rajalakshmi Nirmal
-The Hindu Business Line The solution lies in better prices for produce, generating non-farm income, and reducing costs of farming After the Yogi Adityanath government waived farm loans of about ?36,000 crore for UP farmers, pressure has mounted on other States to follow suit. But contrary to common belief, debt waivers aside from possibly guaranteeing electoral victory, do little to alleviate the plight of farmers. Neither do they help kick-start the rural...
More »Aadhaar trouble: How a woman's wages under MGNREGA were transferred to someone else's account -Rajendran Narayanan, Sakina Dhorajiwala & Sabhil Nath Paikra
-Scroll.in Errors in linking Aadhaar to bank accounts under MNGREGA has meant many workers are going unpaid. It is easy to wake a person who is sleeping, but difficult to wake someone pretending to be asleep. This aphorism rings true for several decisions of the Modi government. One such example is the manner in which the government has pushed the unique identity project, despite several Supreme Court orders stating that the Aadhaar...
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