-The Hindu VISAKHAPATNAM: It is estimated that crop in 2,300 ha has been damaged. Most of the cane grown in the area is used for making jaggery. Even if some of the cane can be used to make jaggery, the units are in no condition to work as there is no power. Sugarcane, paddy, cashew, casuarina - anything that came in the way of the severe cyclonic storm Hudhud met with the...
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Salt invasion in Indo-Gangetic basin has led to 40% increase in human health problems: UN -Kounteya Sinha
-The Economic Times LONDON: Large areas of rich irrigated and fertile land in the Indo-Gangetic basin is being lost daily to salt damage, confirms the UN. Crop yield losses on salt-affected lands for wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton grown on salt-affected lands could be 40%, 45%, 48%, and 63%, respectively. Employment losses could be 50-80 man-days per hectare, with an estimate 20-40% increase in human health problems and 15-50% increase in animal health...
More »Dangerous withdrawal -Prabhat Patnaik
-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...
More »Melting glaciers, changing climate -Meena Menon
-The Hindu Though studies point to an increase in the pace of glacier wastage in the western Himalayas, long-term monitoring is required to study glacier evolution and its relation to the climate At dawn, Mohd Soheb begins an arduous trek to the high camp at Chhota Shigri glacier in the Pir Panjal range in Spiti valley, Himachal Pradesh. From the PWD guesthouse at Chota Dara, he walks down to the Chandra river...
More »When all the boards did shrink -Himanshu Upadhya
-Hard News Floods in Kashmir could have been managed better if there was a reliable early warning system The first fortnight of September saw Jammu and Kashmir being ravaged by severe flash floods. But, according to the snatches of news we got, the monsoon was below average in the state until the last week of August. Thereafter, four days of incessant rain in the Valley and in Jammu made almost all the...
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