-Scroll.in/ India Spend The Charanka solar park may help India reach its renewable energy goals, but it has a hidden cost. The parched brown land in Charanka village in North West Gujarat, around 50 km from India’s border with Pakistan, seemed endless. In peak summer, during one of the worst droughts to hit the region in 30 years, it seemed devoid of all life – even doughty bush plants have lost most...
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Repeat MPs' assets rose 142% -Devesh K Pandey
-The Hindu Financial details of 153 sitting MPs analysed by ADR-National Election Watch The average financial assets of 153 re-elected Lok Sabha MPs grew by 142%, from ?5.5 crore in 2009 to ?13.32 crore in 2014, according to an analysis by National Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Reforms. E. T. Mohammed Basheer of the IUML declared the highest jump of 2,018% (an almost 22-fold surge), followed by the TMC’s Sisir...
More »Farmers and others -Christophe Jaffrelot
-The Indian Express Will the kisan take care of interests of landless peasants as well? In the aftermath of the demonstrations by farmers in the name of agricultural prices and loan waiving, it is important to remember that village India also comprises of landless peasants who have nothing to sell on the market and have never gone to a bank. Their condition has deteriorated, too, as a result not only of the...
More »Over-cultivation of water-guzzling rice crop threatens to deplete state's groundwater reserves -Arjun Sharma
-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: Two years ago, Charan Singh's tubewell ran dry just before the paddy-sowing season could start. The rice farmer, who cultivates four acres of land in the Mansa district of Punjab, had been pumping water from 45 feet below the surface. Now he had to dig another, deeper well. Like Charan Singh, 36, thousands of farmers across Punjab are astonished at the speed at which groundwater, their principal source of water...
More »Water-scarce Bundelkhand: Clashes, anxiety as stray cattle take over fields -Sarah Hafeez
-The Indian Express A water-scarce region, Bundelkhand has been battling drought, debt and poverty for over a decade. In the past three years, “anna pashu (stray cattle)” has been added to the list, now building up to a serious crisis. The cattle have started endangering the Rabi crop. Hamirpur (Uttar Pradesh): On December 25, to mark former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday with ‘gau sewa’, Uma Kant, the director of BNV...
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