-Down to Earth The food most associated with biodiversity loss also tends to also be connected to unhealthy diets across the globe As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths...

-TheNewsMinute.com Kerala has become a state fueled by a remittance economy, but the origins of this, dates back to several decades. In the summer of 1980, I visited Kerala’s Varkala in Thiruvanathapuram for the first time. It was the peak of the first Gulf boom. The media was full of stories on the ones who had made it big. But I was doing an article on the petrodollar paupers — the ignored...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...

-Hindustan Times The unconventional system of cultivation is considered useful in controlling weed, saving water and reducing crop lodging Chandigarh: Progressive cotton farmers in Bathinda district have taken to unconventional narrow raised bed technique. According to information, about 3,500 hectares in the district is under this system of cotton cultivation that is considered useful in weed control, saving water and reducing crop lodging. The state agriculture department has recognised the novel initiative taken...

-TheWire.in From demonetisation to GST and now the lockdown, the government's policies towards the 'unorganised sector' has spelt nothing but rack and ruin. What has the BJP-led government of Narendra Modi done since 2014 that does not suggest it wishes to destroy the informal economy, also known as the unorganised sector? While the ‘unorganised’ informal economy now accounts for roughly half of India’s GDP – and is shrinking relative to the share of...