News 360° - Briefs

climate change People’s charter: No to REDD

News 360° - Briefs

ecology Malaysia on a dam spree

The Shetty farm model

“This is our palace,” says 60-year-old N Ravindranath Shetty, as he welcomes one to his home with a grin. The palace he refers to is a 240 square feet single-room house made of clay bricks, roofed with coconut thatch and tarpaulin. An incredulous stare elicits an explanation: “Since we moved here, my wife and I spend all our time outdoors. This is all we need by way of a house.”

Farmers in a bind

a ban on growing trees, installing borewells and digging ponds on farms is giving sleepless nights to residents of 204 villages of Punjab. The ban is in view of a 610 km gas pipeline that would pass through the farms in three districts—Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib and Ropar. Digging work has started. The Dadri-Bawana-Nangal pipeline of the Gas Authority of India Limited (gail) is meant to supply gas to Punjab and Haryana.    

Coconut courier service

It’s early morning. As a speeding passenger bus approaches the Acharya Vihar crossing in Bhubaneswar, a man on the roadside waves a coconut wrapped in a piece of red cloth. The bus screeches to a halt. The conductor hurries down and accepts the fruit. Barely after a kilometre, the bus stops again. This time to collect a bunch of red cloth-wrapped coconuts from a woman. By the time the bus reaches Cuttack, the driver’s cabin is stacked with coconuts.

20 months of despair

Victims of the 2008 Kosi flood in Bihar are awaiting compensation. They cannot farm because their land is full of fine silt. Officials in the flood-affected districts say villagers complain because they don’t understand the formalities—they need to furnish a first information report (fir) and death certificate to claim compensation. If villagers do manage to get these documents the officials’ explanation for delay is paperwork. Till that gets sorted the flood victims continue to suffer.

Indore’s soil is malnourished

Indore’s soil is malnourished Vital nutrients missing: study liberal doses of synthetic fertilizers may increase farm productivity for sometime but they are bad for the soil’s health.

Problem of plenty

farmers of the Doaba region in Punjab are worried because they have a bumper potato harvest this year. They are not finding buyers for their produce and there aren’t enough cold storage facilities to store the tuber.

Tikait on SEZ and Indian farmer

Darkness lies ahead for the Indian Farmer, says Mahendra Singh Tikait, Bharat Kisan Union (BKU) leader in this exclusive interview with Down to Earth.

Did Punjab pocket farmers’ subsidy?

More than Rs 10 crore unaccounted for. Probe under way The Punjab government fixed the price of certified wheat seeds at Rs 1750 per quintal (1 quintal=100kg) and the chemically-treated variety at Rs 1950 per quintal for the rabi season of 2009-10. This price was exclusive of the subsidy of Rs 700, which the Centre offers under the National Food Security Mission, also called NFSM-Wheat. The state government instead offered subsidy of Rs 500, and sold the varieties at Rs 1,250 and Rs 1,450 per quintal. The reason it did so is not clear.