-Down to Earth The much-delayed climate summit in Glasgow did little to acknowledge that combatting climate change requires cooperation at a scale never seen before The 26th Conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — CoP26) is done and dusted, and the world has signed on to the Glasgow Climate Pact. The question now is whether this pact will go far enough to keep the world at a...

-The New Indian Express An energy crisis was the last thing policymakers had expected in the aftermath of Covid-19. An energy crisis was the last thing policymakers had expected in the aftermath of Covid-19. But here we are, facing an unprecedented energy crisis, not just in India but in many other parts of the world. Even as the Delhi chief minister sent an SOS to the Central government warning of possible power...

-Down to Earth Aggressive sugarcane farming contaminates land, water The Union government intends to increase the amount of ethanol in the energy mix to lower the country’s dependence on imported oil and carbon footprint, as well as stabilise petrol prices.  India currently blends about 8.5 per cent ethanol in petrol. The government is targeting a 10 per cent ethanol blend by 2022 and a 20 per cent blend (E20) by 2025. E20 can save...

-Down to Earth Pandemic-induced poverty and rise in food prices keep healthy diet out of reach of three billion people Good food or just food? “Our choice is always the latter. We need to survive.” Sukru Ojha, the 56-year-old resident of Koraput, Odisha told Down To Earth in April in reply to a query on whether the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic-induced income loss impacted his food intake. Koraput is one of...

In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...