-Down to Earth Improved access to new markets, better yields and higher income need to safeguard environmental sustainability and farmers’ indebtedness The ongoing agitation by farmers on the borders of Delhi provides an opportunity to flag concerns about various aspects in the agriculture sector, including the environment, society, economy, food security and risk coverage for farmers. Several commentators have already spoken about the 2020 farm laws, supported by statistics, and experience. Many of...

Often exports made by a country to the rest of the world are seen in a positive light by us. It is because exports not only earn precious foreign currencies (that can be used for importing goods and services or simply be used for building forex reserves), it also helps in generating effective demand for goods and services produced in that country and hence, contributes to economic or GDP growth....

-The Indian Express The environment ministry needs to be clear about its role — its mandate is to create and sustain a regulatory framework that prevents the plunder of our natural resources, not actively accelerate the pace of environmental devastation. The draft Environmental impact assessment (EIA) notification 2020 proposed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has met with massive opposition. As the (hard-won) extended public consultation period draws to...

-International Institute for Environment and Development, July 2020 The working paper entitled 'Deepening knowledge of MGNREGS’ contribution to climate resilience: A study of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh' strengthens the robust evidence base behind the climate resilience contribution of social protection, by investigating India’s largest social protection programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Guaranteeing 100 days’ paid wage labour to rural households that demand it and another 50...

-Livemint.com * The pandemic-induced global pause resulted in several visible environmental gains. Will they last? * A controversy is brewing over the government’s efforts to push through radical changes to the country’s environmental laws, which seek to further dilute Environmental Protections NAGPUR: Teeming wildlife; cities breathing fresh air; and clearer rivers. Those were all small signs of hope amid a dire, once-in-a-century pandemic. Nature was supposedly healing. At one point in April, an...