-TheWire.in A look at how the country’s political heavyweights deal with environmental issues and livelihoods in their poll manifestos Twin crises beset India today: serious unemployment and the loss of livelihoods, along with the collapse of the ecological basis on which we all survive. Any political party that does not deal with these is not serious about the country’s future. So how well do the country’s political heavyweights, the Congress and the BJP,...

-Livemint.com * Over 40% of India is in the grip of abnormally dry conditions. Will the elections bring any relief? * The situation in Maharashtra is approaching the 2016-like crisis, when consecutive years of drought forced the state government to supply drinking water to Latur by train NEW DELHI: Between November of last year when Sharad Markad opened a cattle relief camp in drought-hit Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra and now, the price of...

-The Hindu Raipur: Selling his paddy crop was a pleasantly different experience this year for Yogesh Nareti, a farmer with 17 acres of land in Makadi village in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, which goes to the polls this week. “During the BJP reign, selling the produce at Large-sized Agricultural Multipurpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS) was tedious. The entire process used to take two months,” he recalls. “Now, besides offering a lucrative MSP [minimum support...

-The Telegraph Some clauses of the draft of the Indian Forest Act 2019 are extraordinarily undemocratic Forests are considered planetary resources of great importance: as carbon sinks, as repositories for biodiversity, as effective tools for local climate control, and as a source of timber and related produce. Forests have been dwelling places for people, too. It is important from the point of view of sustainable development that forests be preserved and biodiversity...

-Newsclick.in In an interview, the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution, says while technology is necessary, policies on procurement and public distribution are far more important in making agriculture economically viable and sustainable in the country. No one has played a more instrumental role in India’s self-sufficiency in food production than Dr MS Swaminathan — world-renowned agricultural scientist, known as the ‘Father of Green Revolution in India’. After getting a PhD from Cambridge...