-TheWire.in A claim of an 8.4% real GDP growth rate has little relevance even as rural India battles plummeting wage levels, depleted incomes and widespread unemployment. With the release of the GDP figures for the quarter ending September, the government machinery has been in full swing advancing the narrative that economic growth is indeed back on track. However, sorely missing from these narratives is the inconvenient factoid on the currently dismal state of...

-Hindustan Times The meat-climate debate is pretty much a red herring for a country like India where meat has a minuscule presence in Indian diets There is increasing realization that meat-based diets lead to harmful emissions. Many scientific studies show the world stands to gain if people either give up or even reduce eating meat. For example, a 2019 article in the Nature journal, citing a report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental...

-The Tribune Grains sold at fair price shops unfit for eating: Consumers Palampur: In the absence of any checks, ‘substandard’ foodgrain, especially pulses, are being sold at fair price shops in Kangra district. The pulses have high moisture content and are not fit for human consumption. The state government supplies subsidised foodgrain to consumers through over 4,500 outlets, including fair price shops. Sources say that the commodities being supplied at the fair price...

-TheNewsMinute.com Caught between denialism and short-sightedness, vulnerable communities in Sivakasi bear the brunt of clampdowns due to air pollution. At the strike of a gavel in Delhi, lights go out in Sivakasi. When states located thousands of kilometres away place curbs, sales turn out to be a damp squib in the fireworks capital. Year after year, about 6.5 lakh people in Sivakasi dependent on the fireworks industry suffer from rude market shocks because...

When one of the three farm laws i.e., The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 was enacted last year, it was argued by its proponents that the legislation would allow the farmers to sell their produce (and the traders to purchase that produce) outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committee-APMC mandis after crop harvesting. In a way, that particular piece of legislation was enacted to end the...