-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-Mongabay.com * Women are often called as vulnerable victims of climate change as well as integral to climate change adaptation, but even then government policies overlook the oppression they face. * To address it, the latest report by ICIMOD has suggested a series of measures such as the government allocating resources, financial and human, for gender-responsive interventions, and creation of mechanisms to ensure the promotion of women’s rights. * The report also highlighted...

-PTI Southern states continue to lead the pack on the crucial measure, where the country is ranked 130th globally, but are staring at a different trouble, the report notes. Mumbai: Uttar Pradesh and Bihar continue to languish on the human development index (HDI) front, while others, including Haryana and Himachal, have shown an improvement in the past 27 years, says a report. The industrially progressive Gujarat and Maharashtra have slipped in the HDI...

-The Hindu Better education is not leading to better job opportunities, marriage prospects or freedom of movement Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of the U.S. and mother of the sixth President, wrote to her husband, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion.” As last year’s #MeToo movement and Sabarimala protests showed, perhaps Indian women are echoing her and are...

-Newsclick.in The additional funds of Rs 6,084 crore released recently will go into clearing the backlog of pending liabilities. Contrary to the claims of highest ever allocation to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the social security scheme that aims to guarantee the right to work is facing severe fund crisis – with state governments left with no funds to pay workers. From October 2018 to February 1, no...