The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
A threat to food security looms large over east and central Africa. The insect which causes the cassava mosaic disease is rapidly spreading around the western side of Lake Victoria in Tanzania and parts of Congo. Experts warn that the affliction is threatening the livelihoods of many people whose daily …
Water is a critical issue in Afghanistan. The country receives less than 300 millimetres of rain each year and shares all its river basins with neighbouring countries. Twenty-three years of conflict have left its water infrastructure system shattered. And drought over the last five years aggravated the situation. Today, only …
The Sen committee has evolved an effective formula to compensate farmers who will get lower msp. According to it, the difference between the current msps and the lower cost of production-based msps, multiplied by the average of three years' procurement figures, will be ploughed back as direct income support for …
it is a paradox that has stumped the Union government. On the one hand, the central task force is flooded with requests for aid as the drought devastates state after state (12 at the last count). And, on the other, the country is saddled with a huge surplus stock of …
The European Union (eu) has proposed to amend the 40-year-old Common Agricultural Policy (cap). Under the proposal, subsidies will be granted to farmers on the basis of their observing public health, safety and environmental norms. This is in contrast to the existing system wherein farmers receive sops on the basis …
Rice is the staple food for much of the third world. Needless to say, improvement in its yield and quality would go a long way towards establishing food security. To know and understand its genome structure and function is the first step that the scientific community is taking in this …
death is a seasonal visitor to Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh's largest district and wasteland. It comes just before sowing and after the harvest of groundnut, a cash crop that occupies 91 per cent of land in the district. More than 100 groundnut farmers have committed suicide since the last two years …
when Bhuna Bhil of Pathara village in Dungarpur ran away from the communal carnage in Gujarat, he faced a dilemma: what would he do back in his village? It had already exhausted all his sources of livelihood. Known as the 20th century desert, Dungarpur's 68 per cent population has been …
Poverty in Sarguja district has taken epic proportions. Unlike in the Mahabharat, the descendants of Pandavas and Kauravas have come together to fight a common enemy in Sarguja: poverty. And their fight is as heroic as the Mahabharat. Pandos, the local tribals and descendants of the Pandavas, are fighting for …
Irrigation is a luxury that only a few can afford in Mandla, a water-rich district in Madhya Pradesh. The district receives an annual rainfall of 1,300 mm, which can easily sustain three crops a year. But Mandla residents can barely manage one. The district is surrounded by the mighty Narmada …
While the Union government is bothered about the high cost of storing surplus foodgrain, groundnut farmers in Anantapur commit suicide. Clearly, measures of poverty need changing. Policymakers must now take into account the time spent by women to collect firewood or water. This distance needs to be shortened as this …
Rabindra Nath Mishra, an additional block development officer, is a bit worried. He thought calculating Phulbani's poor, as directed by the Supreme Court, would be easy. The expenditure limit of Rs 250 per month (as the decisive line between poverty and prosperity) seemed a ridiculous amount. But when the final …
The poor in Nepal appear to possess the Midas touch. Wherever the government has handed over control of degraded forestland to them under the leasehold forestry programme, the Himalayan country's ecology has staged a magical turnaround. In the process, the below poverty line (bpl) households have unfolded economic miracles also. …
Theirs is no romantic tale of the desert. Rather the plight of camel herders of Rajasthan today is that of an endless struggle for survival. Time was when Virma Ram proudly watched his herd of camels stretch in an endless line along the dusty horizon. Today, his gaze has turned …
contrary to the statistics published by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (fao), which indicate that the global fish catches are stable, fisheries scientists at the University of British Columbia (ubc), Vancouver, Canada, have documented evidence that catches have been declining for over a decade. This new evidence means …
