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 …
the World Bank has cleared us $108.2 million credit for Andhra Pradesh's community forest management programme. The move has created an uproar in the state with non-governmental organisations (ngos) alleging that negotiations for the loan have not been transparent. In fact they have slammed the state government's move to rename …
In Madhya Pradesh, Mangal and Surshingh of Sarai village, go to the district administration at Dhar, several kilometres away, to lodge complaints against local services. Sometimes, it is about a non-functioning tube well, a crumbling primary school building, housing 60 students, or the veterinary doctor who had no place to …
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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 …
Heads of panchayati raj institutions have aggressively set the government a deadline to amend the Indian constitution and implement changes that would forcibly impact and empower Village India. It would give villages control over natural resources like water, minor forest produce and minerals, which at present lies with the state …
The lack of health infrastructure and malnutrition in India's rural regions has left the people vulnerable to a number of health problems. Children are the worst affected with life expectancy levels in some states dipping to a dangerous low. Wasting, a measure of child health, built upon the weight to …
Amid starvation deaths, overflowing granaries and a persistent Supreme Court chasing the government to explain these paradoxes, the recent Union cabinet clearance to the Rs 10,000-crore food for work programme should on face value be good news. But given the fact that the government wants to use the scheme to …
people in West Bengal are highly susceptible to arsenic poisoning because of their food habits, states a report of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (unido). According to it, the chemical gets concentrated in the roots of vegetables that form a big part of Bengalis' diet. "Liquid pulses and potato …
to help implement and monitor its sector reform pilot programme more effectively, the Union rural development ministry recently signed an agreement with the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme. The Union government's programme, which covers 70 million rural people, has proved ineffective till now. The major drawback has been monitoring …
the Punjab government has introduced reed-bed system ( rbs ), an ecofriendly way of treating sewage with the help of reed plants in Roorki village of Fatehgarh Sahib district. T he system is a specially engineered simulation of a natural wetland ecosystem for the treatment of sewage, sullage and industrial …
