-The Hindu The delay in compensation is appalling and the inaction is in breach of court orders, says Bench The Supreme Court has slammed the Kerala government for doing “virtually nothing” for Endosulfan Pesticide exposure victims. The court said the State’s inaction was “appalling” and amounted to a breach of the apex court’s 2017 judgment, which had ordered the State to pay ₹5 lakh each to the victims in three months. Five years...

-Down to Earth Farmers are being pushed to suicide amid market shortage   Chilli farmers in Telangana’s Subakkapalli village, Bhopalapalli district, are living their worst nightmare. A new pest, black thrips (Thrips parvispinus), has destroyed over 40 hectares (ha) of standing crop in a matter of months. In Sidduri Ravindra Rao’s farm, the initial signs of the attack were reported in the first week of December last year. He increased the frequency of...

-TheNewsMinute.com ‘Colonies in conflict’, directed by Rajani Mani, follows migratory giant Asian honey bees to reveal how human action is driving bee decline. When documentary filmmaker Rajani Mani moved into a high-rise apartment in Bengaluru in 2015, the massive beehives on the balconies and ledges of the top floors caught her eye. She was concerned, however, about the use of fire, smoke and Pesticides to remove the hives which could endanger the...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com WHEN the Sri Lankan economy collapsed with a sigh recently, prominently sticking out of the debris was a failed attempt to take the island nation into full-scale organic agricultural production. The Rajapaksa government had virtually overnight ordered a switch to organic agriculture to save foreign exchange on the import of chemical fertilizers and Pesticides. But going organic, instead of being the solution, became a bigger problem with food crops failing and the...

-ThePrint.in Diversification is critical for Punjab and Haryana farmers who face the challenge of depleting water tables. We need another agricultural revolution. Every time we visit Punjab, we ask farmers why they stick with the rice-wheat cropping pattern year on year. Especially when most are witnessing receding underground water levels, forcing them to deepen their borewells each year during the paddy season. One answer from a young farmer stayed with us. He...