-Deccan Chronicle Maintaining green cover (not just trees, but also grass and small plants) is a big challenge in Delhi due to the shortage of water. With the quality of Delhi’s air has again reached critical levels with severe pollution, alarm bells have gone off, and the Delhi government announced it would bring back the “odd-even” scheme, that seems to be turning into an annual ritual. (The plan has been temporarily kept...

-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...

-Livemint.com In India, 9 million people left farming between 2001 and 2011 largely due to distress, not because industry invited them, says Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the FAO Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, says more Indians are moving out of agriculture due to distress and not because the manufacturing sector is inviting them. In an interview, Khadka calls for converting food...

-IndiaClimateDialogue.net In north Bihar, where floods devastate standing crops with increasing regularity in an era of climate change, a marginalised community is fighting all odds to protect an indigenous flood-resistant variety of rice. Sahorwa village is caught between the embankments of two major rivers in north Bihar. Between the Kosi river’s western embankment and Kamla Balan river’s eastern embankment, this village of 110 Musahar families remains flooded for seven to eight months...

-Scroll.in The Swaraj India leader says the economy needs a big boost in the rural areas and for small scale manufacturers. In July, Yogendra Yadav, the national president of the Swaraj India party, embarked on a nationwide movement accompanied by activists and hundreds of farmers. Under the banner of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, a coalition of more than 150 farmer unions across the country, the yatra was planned...