The latest UN environment report based on about 400 major peer-reviewed scientific studies over three years has warned that the threat of climate change could be much worse than predicted earlier. The UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 report warns that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries. (See salient features and links below) It says that the...

HAS GREEN REVOLUTION FAILED INDIA'S POOR? Green Revolution Vs Rain-fed Farming OVERVIEW: Of late India’s fabled Green Revolution has come under severe attack. Many development thinkers believe that it has unfairly skewed India’s agriculture policy in favour of the farmers whose land is already or potentially covered under irrigation. The basic criticism is that the Green Revolution has been largely irrelevant for India’s 60 per cent cultivable land which is un-irrigated. These...

The rural population is at present estimated at 85 crores. Ten per cent of the households are completely landless. Another 52 per cent have holdings of less than 0.2 hectare. The per capita agricultural land in the rural areas has come down to 0.12 hectare. According to the National Sample Survey, the annual income of an agricultural household from farming is less than Rs 12,000 and from all sources it...

A seminar titled Food Security and Sustainability in India, organized at Amritsar between 7 and 8 November by the GAD Institute of Development Studies, a NGO, at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, brought together government officials, scientists, academicians and NGOs so as to generate discussions and debates surrounding climate change and global warming and their impact on agriculture. The Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change is going to take place between...

Energy security is a major objective of all countries. Some are proactive and aggressive in this pursuit, like China; others like India are slow and procrastinate on major decisions and allow hope to overtake realistic assessments. This makes energy security in the foreseeable future an uncertain goal for India. Any discussion of energy security must keep in mind the Indian realities. Although in overall terms of commercial energy use to...