-The Times of India AURANGABAD: A patchwork of brown fields is visible from the air as you fly into this drought-hit region in rural Maharashtra. But amid the dry land is a growing mosaic of blue and brown squares and rectangles. These are farm ponds: Large earthen structures that have spread across rural Maharashtra in the past five years, thanks to a raft of central and state subsidies. The ponds were conceived...
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Kumbh brought Allahabad to verge of an epidemic, says NGT -Banjot Kaur
-Down to Earth The tribunal has asked UP chief secretary to immediately act on the mismanaged solid waste from the pilgrimage Both the Governments, at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh, claimed to have organised a 'swachh' — clean — Kumbh in the winter of 2018-19, but the National Green Tribunal seems to differ. In fact, the quasi judicial body rang alarm bells on Aprill 22, 2019 about host city Allahabad being on...
More »The problem with cherry-picking data -Arun Kumar
-The Hindu If it’s the Government’s case that NSSO figures are suspect, what has it based policy decisions on? Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said last week, “we definitely have a data crisis,” and blamed academics for creating a “false narrative”. Yet, at the heart of the data crisis in India is the Central Government, which has been holding back important data. Most recently, it did...
More »Saurashtra woes: Policy change on check dams leads to water deficit -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth In the 1990s, non-profits and farmers themselves built check dams; today, the Government does it, without proper research or site selection Fifty-four-year old Dineshbhai Babariya has just harvested a 20 quintal cotton crop, his second harvest in the last one year in his four bigha (1.6 acre) farm in the Jasapar village of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. August 2018 was the last time the village in Rajkot district received around 228...
More »Dry Bundelkhand wants 'ponds for votes' -Swati Mathur
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Three summers ago, a water train dispatched by the Centre had chugged into Uttar Pradesh' Bundelkhand region, attempting to provide succour to the parched area. The train had pulled in empty, drawn water from a local reservoir and triggered a massive political row between the Centre and the state Government, as a result. This year, the weatherman's predictions for Bundelkhand are bleak as usual, not ruling...
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