-Gaon Connection Birsa Harit Gram Yojana, launched in 2020 as a rural employment scheme, in convergence with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, is providing double benefits to farmers who are cultivating their fallow lands and also earning wages. Barabanki (East Singhbhum), Jharkhand: For a large part of the year, 51-year-old Laxmi Narayan Singh's three acre plot of land used to remain fallow. He and his 46-year-old wife Savita Singh...

-Livemint.com Industry estimates suggest two-wheeler sales for fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) will close out at 14.5 million units, the lowest volume in almost a decade. This betrays a deep distress in incomes of rural households. Mint explains the fault lines: * Why are two-wheeler sales falling? Rural demand contributes 50-60% of two-wheeler sales in the commuter segment. Price increases, rising fuel prices and unseasonal rains leading to poor crop realizations have hit the...

-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) A prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people and sparking food and energy shortages. Experts say the extreme heat is a grim preview of what the climate crisis has in store for a region home to over 1 billion people. Temperatures in India’s capital and parts of Pakistan have at times reached close to 50°C, killing...

-The Wire Science * Solar energy is a rapidly expanding marketplace that should benefit the environment. Solar panels can last for decades if they are properly cleaned and maintained. * But there is a catch. What happens to these panels after they are decommissioned? They go straight to the landfill, where they have significant consequences. * Heavy metals in solar panels such as lead and cadmium have been known to seep out of...

-Press release by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) dated 18 May 2022 Geneva, 18 May 2022 (WMO): Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. This is yet another clear sign that human activities are causing planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for sustainable development and...