-The Telegraph In November, Bengal topped among all states by providing water supply connections to 2.40 lakh destinations in a month Bolpur( Birbhum): The Bengal government has set a target to supply piped water to around 5.77 lakh households in Bengal’s 10,729 remote rural hamlets facing water shortage within March next year. Sources said the state public health engineering (PHE) department recently held a statewide survey to identify remote hamlets located in forested...

-Down to Earth It is critical for us to adopt the circular water management model of treating and rejuvenating wastewater at source, along with efficient water management strategies to reduce water demand India’s agricultural exports registered a growth of 17.34 per cent, garnering $41.25 billion in foreign exchange for 2020-21 despite the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In rupee terms, this is equivalent to Rs 3.05 lakh crore. For a government faced...

Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-The Hindu New research at University of Cambridge focuses on rural knowledge systems and sustainable practices to safeguard the ecosystem An academic with research interests in food production, rural development and gender equality in development interventions, Shailaja Fennell has worked on several international projects to promote sustainability and build resilience. She supervises M.Phil students at the Centre of Development Studies – University of Cambridge, and Ph.D students at the Centre of Development...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...