-Down to Earth Low returns and high risks from alternative crops among reasons past efforts failed, says report The Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices (CACP) has recommended promotion of crop diversification, favouring oilseed crops amid the global inflation in oilseeds and vegetable oils prices. Global inflation creates a structural risk as vegetable oils account for about half of India’s agricultural import, subsequently raising the country’s agri-import bill, the commission wrote in its...

-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) A prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people and sparking food and energy shortages. Experts say the extreme heat is a grim preview of what the climate crisis has in store for a region home to over 1 billion people. Temperatures in India’s capital and parts of Pakistan have at times reached close to 50°C, killing...

-Outlook India Sandeep Chachra is Executive Director, ActionAid Association and Co-chair of the World Urban Campaign, UN-Habitat. He discusses and expresses views of the ground reality of the success behind Punjab's Agriculture Industry. "Microfinance companies are breaking our backs.  Many women in our block have taken loans that they can't repay.  During COVID, these loans have swelled up, and the company agents THReaten us, take away our belongings, our gas cylinders.  I...

-The Hindu Business Line They have shown the way in water conservation, waste management and solar energy Be it climate change adaptation or mitigation, cooperatives have set the agenda to collectively provide solutions to the looming impact of rising temperature, loss of jobs, depletion of water resources, degradation of land and forest resources and accumulation of wastes leading to health hazards. The explicit adoption of eco-social agendas by cooperatives is contributing to co-op...

-Hindustan Times EIA 2020 had received over two million objections, comments and suggestions to the draft. A total of 100 environmental groups, organisations and individuals. New Delhi: Although the environment impact assessment draft notification proposed by the government in 2020 (EIA 2020) that raised concerns from environmentalists has expired because it was not notified in time, experts caution that the authorities have introduced some of the contentious rules separately. EIA 2020 had received...