-The Hindu Business Line The recent deaths in Maharashtra once again affirm that highly toxic agrochemicals are freely sold across the counter Last month about 40 farmers died and more than 700 were hospitalised in Maharashtra due pesticide poisoning. Initial reports suggest that the deaths are due to monochrotophos. This is a highly toxic chemical that has been banned in more than 60 countries but is still allowed to be sold in...

-TheWire.in Based on a militarised notion of ‘targeting’, such welfare policies deny citizens the right to basic services. In an incisive analysis on anti-poverty and other social security programmes, Professor Amartya Sen astutely asks why the notion of targeting, which is essentially a military concept, is so routinely invoked in analytical discourses on basic welfare rights for the people as well as in policy framing in this respect. Indeed, why would an...

-Scroll.in A severe shortage of government-distributed pesticides aggravated the crop loss from attacks by brown planthoppers. A twin calamity has struck farmers in Odisha in recent weeks. A moderate to severe drought has affected paddy crops on more than 3.1 lakh hectares of land in over 6,000 villages across 15 districts. In addition, an attack by brown planthoppers – insects that feed on rice plants – has destroyed paddy fields on...

-PTI Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says all cities should be mandated to implement clean air action plan in a time-bound manner to meet clean air standards New Delhi: A green body on Tuesday called for the implementation of an emergency plan to address air pollution, after a Lancet Journal report said it was the second leading risk factor for health loss in India last year. Expressing shock at the loss of...

-The Hindu If we oppose every solution to the problem of air pollution, how will we ever breathe clean air, asks the environmentalist Environmentalist Sunita Narain has been fighting for clean air for decades. The Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, with which she has been associated and now serves as director general, led the shift to compressed natural gas in Delhi, to reduce air pollution. Ms. Narain is on the statutory...