Managing Editor, Down To Earth. He has been associated with the fortnightly since 1997 and has written extensively on rural affairs and development matters
Lonely in Anthropocene
Humans have to be the point of solution for the planet’s uncontrolled slip into an abyss of ecological disaster
Cheers, agriculture is finally a political agenda in India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi plays Santa Claus on Christmas Day, releases funds and discusses farmers’ problems as protests continue on …
Amid protests over agri laws let's look at how some countries support farmers
Every day, 54, mostly developed countries give nearly $2 billion in support to their farmers
US elections 2020: Trumped by hunger
US presidential candidates aren’t known to talk hunger; but they do talk inequality. This year, the pandemic and racial polarisation made …
Roti, kapda, makaan... and vaccine: Can it sway elections
With potential COVID-19 vaccines equalling cheap foodgrains’ power as a poll promise, can vaccine sub-nationalism be far behind
India needs the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan back
Anti-poverty programmes must be universal, not just on a below or above poverty line matrix
The COVID-19 pandemic has already created a disadvantaged generation
Newborns, those about to be born and children under five will be the worst victims in terms of long-term impacts on growth and development
Growth in agriculture is not remunerative to Indian farmers
Exceptional growth in agriculture and acreage in kharif season precipitate a crisis like never before for farmers
Why farmers are not cheering their exceptional feat this kharif season
Highest rice acreage in six years, more farmers in farms, a bounty monsoon and an expected bumper harvest don't enthuse farmers as their …
What Sierra Leone teaches us on poverty measurement
The latest Global Multidimensional Poverty Index says this least developed country reduced overall poverty and deprivations fastest in the world …
COVID-19: The pandemic of inequality
Nobody is sure when this defining point of the pandemic would be declared over
Floods cost India Rs 4.7 lakh crore in last 6 decades
At least 90% of the Assam’s districts are flooded and more than 50,000 people are in relief camps
COVID-19: Climate-related disasters impact labour more than wars
The ongoing pandemic will add to already-reduced labour productivity caused by natural disasters whose frequency has doubled since 2000
A new epoch: Human population to peak in 44 years
Global population estimated to touch 9.73 bln in 2064, then decline to 8.79 bln in 36 years
COVID-19 lockdown: Why some workers lost patience
The rich now trusts the government most, while the less privileged experience an absence of the same
The untouchables: COVID-19 lockdown and the migrants
Social-distancing on the one hand and slipping back to age-old social discrimination on the other hand can break backs
Where does the world stand 4 months into COVID-19?
It has learnt at a deadly cost that inequality in development has the power to make a health emergency into a long-term problem
Panchayati Raj Day: Pandemic and the panchayats
Prime Minister Narendra Modi says: ‘We need to learn more from how villages manage COVID-19 pandemic than from cities’
COVID-19: An extreme disorder
Flattening the epidemiological curve also means an economic cessation. Who will bear the burden most in an unequal world?
Mr Modi, you made the pandemic another event
Prime Minister's address to the nation is insensitive to situation, barring fleeting mentions of economic bailout
COVID-19: A long economic quarantine
Forecast of high temperature, erratic rains and cyclone push India’s poor into a point of no survival return
Delhi elections: Populism’s twin faces
In the Delhi elections, the Aam Aadmi Party may have benefitted from strategic voting by people who wanted to retain its agenda of welfare …
India has to increase emissions, RK Pachauri told me
The former head of IPCC died at 79 leaving behind a trail of headlines on climate change
India to witness severe food inflation due to extreme weather
The record-breaking vegetable price rise indicates an era of high food inflation in coming years
Davos 2020: Will sweeping protests across the globe lead to a new form of capitalism
‘Stakeholder capitalism’ may become a buzzword, but will it be a concept that can deliver