-Down to Earth Successive droughts lead to a substantial and unsustainable expansion of cropland at the expense of forested lands “Droughts are misery in slow motion” with impacts even deeper than previously believed. Although floods pose major economic threats, water scarcity and drought may be causing long-term harm in ways that are poorly understood and inadequately documented, claims Uncharted waters: the new economics of water scarcity and variability, a report by...

-IndiaClimateDialogue.net In north Bihar, where floods devastate standing crops with increasing regularity in an era of climate change, a marginalised community is fighting all odds to protect an indigenous flood-resistant variety of rice. Sahorwa village is caught between the embankments of two major rivers in north Bihar. Between the Kosi river’s western embankment and Kamla Balan river’s eastern embankment, this village of 110 Musahar families remains flooded for seven to eight months...

-Down to Earth New laws to regulate sand mining have not had much impact Illegal sand mining is a perennial problem in India. But it assumes gargantuan proportions right before the onset of monsoon because swollen rivers make extraction extremely difficult during the rainy season. To make most of the lean period, mine owners and hoarders try to dig out as much sand as possible, through legal and illegal means, in...

-Scroll.in It is hard to understand why the Indian government continues to favour palm oil imports over homegrown edible oils in Gujarat and elsewhere. Dhirubhai is in dire straits. He can no longer recover his investments on the groundnuts he grows on three acres of land along the Junagadh-Verawal road in Gujarat. In a good year, he grows 100 kilos of groundnuts – or peanuts – for every Rs 4,000 he invests....

-The Times of India It is common — and natural — to think of diseases in terms of death. Often, diseases are measured by death — so many people die of heart attacks, so many of dengue, etc. While this is important, there is another dimension not measured by body counts. It is the scale of suffering and pain felt by people who live with diseases. Talk to any Middle class...