-CaravanMagazine.in As swarms of desert locusts descended upon India this year, toxic insecticides were sprayed over two lakh hectares of land to contain their spread. But the measure could have serious environmental and health consequences. India’s Locust Warning Organization, or LWO, a body under the ministry of agriculture, uses fifteen different formulations of eight insecticides for controlling their spread. Five of these insecticides are banned, restricted or withdrawn in one or...
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The Green Revolution and a dark Punjab -Anuj Behal
-Down to Earth Punjab has paid a price for Food Security. The use of pesticides and fertilisers has resulted in a number of health issues for the state’s population Punjab — known as the ‘Granary of India’ — produces 20 per cent and nine per cent of India’s wheat and rice respectively. At the international level, this represents three per cent of the global production of these crops. The state is responsible...
More »Fight against hunger disrupted by coronavirus-induced recession -Jagriti Chandra
-The Hindu Between 8.3 crore and 13 crore people globally are likely to go hungry this year. Between 8.3 crore and 13 crore people globally are likely to go hungry this year due to the economic recession triggered by coronavirus (COVID-19), warns the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2020 report. Estimates drawn from data available till March 2020 show that almost 69 crore people went hungry in 2019...
More »Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 in doubt, UN report warns
-Down to Earth Between 83 million and 132 million people could go hungry in 2020 due to COVID-19, according to the report Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of ‘Zero Hunger’ that it had mandated by 2030, will be very difficult, a United Nations report released on July 13, 2020, has warned. Six hundred and ninety million people went hungry in 2019 — up by 10 million from 2018, and by nearly 60 million...
More »The pandemic is about eyes shut -Rajendran Narayanan
-The Hindu There is a resonance between Saramago’s literary world and the migrant labour distress in contemporary India The novel, Blindness, by Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago, is strikingly prescient about a sweeping illness. The plot revolves around a mysterious epidemic because of which people suddenly turn blind. The thread It starts with a person driving his car who turns blind while waiting at a traffic signal. He pleads to be taken home and...
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