-Livemint.com Drought declaration can provide farmers relief through compensation for crop damage and restructuring of loans New Delhi: Even though the monsoon ended with a 14% rainfall deficit, with nearly half the country’s districts facing a shortage of over 20%, states are delaying declaring a drought that could provide immediate relief to farmers by compensating for crop damage and restructuring farm loans. The June-September monsoon, which irrigates over half the country’s farm...

-Outlook Scientist and longtime activist against genetically modified BT seeds, Dr. Vandana Shiva, talks about why BT has a devastating fallout. A sudden pest attack has ruined cotton crops in large parts of Punjab, bringing biotech, or BT Cotton back into focus. Farmers who used bio-fertilisers in the Malwa region of the state are said to be safe from this latest pestilence. But those growing BT cotton have lost everything. There...

-Business Standard Thirty-two farmers have committed suicide in the past three weeks in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. Since its birth as a new state, Telangana has recorded 1,269 suicides. Hyderabad: The Hyderabad-based Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), estimates farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh in the past 20 years (1995-2014) at 38,000. Experts and policymakers are convinced the two states are facing prolonged farm distress. Suicide by farmers unable to handle crop...

-The Hindu The production of waste in India is growing at an exponential rate. However, the welfare and dignity of the informal workers involved in the stigmatised sector of waste management remains at the bottom of any government’s political agenda. Human society has always produced waste and always will. Waste materials — substances without value — are constantly generated in all production, all distribution and all consumption processes. The time waste spends...

-TheWire.in Since April 1, 2015, India’s cooking gas subsidies have been distributed solely by electronic transfer through the Direct Benefit Transfer for Liquefied Petroleum Gas scheme (otherwise known as DBTL or PAHAL). Under this system, which has replaced the direct sale of cooking gas cylinders at subsidised prices, households place an order for LPG with their gas distributor, receive an amount equivalent to the current subsidy amount via electronic transfer to...