-TheWire.in In an interview for The Wire, the former ICRISAT scientist says the damage could have been contained if the government had acted promptly to warnings. The desert locust is a deadly agricultural pest that has been on a feeding spree across North Africa, West Asia and South Asia. Lore and mentions of locust swarms exist in the Mahabharata, the Bible and the Quran. But it has been largely absent from the...

-India Today The bulk of migrant workers, nearly 51 percent were engaged in the construction SECtor, including cutting and polishing of stone, painting and making tiles. About 21 percent of migrant labourers were found to be engaged in daily wage employment. Bhopal: A little more than half of the migrant labourers who have returned to Madhya Pradesh from various parts of the country do not want to return to their work places...

-The Hindu BJP government has given a free hand to corporate houses to exploit us, they say Chandigarh: Several farmers under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangarsh Samiti on Monday held protests in several districts of Punjab against the Centre’s recent ordinance on the agriculture SECtor, besides the proposed amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003. Farmers staged the protests in Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozpur, Moga, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Fazilka districts and submitted...

-Newsclick.in The poor need food and money, not more loans. Only demand-side interventions will revive the economy. The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis that almost all countries are struggling to cope with. Like the rest of the world, India is fighting the spread of the disease and its adverse consequences on the health system and its finances. On the economic front, India was already facing a prolonged slowing down. Even before...

-Newsclick.in And yet, it is being tom-tommed as ‘freedom’ for farmers and ‘self-reliance’ for country! Silently, and in double quick time, changes in laws related to cultivation, sale, stocking and pricing of agricultural produce – food grain, vegetables, etc. – have been proposed and disposed by the Narendra Modi government. Three ordinances relating to these key dimensions were given Presidential assent late on June 5 night, and they came into force “at...