No price panel meetings in 10 Assam tea-growing districts in 5 years, finds CAG

Less than 4 meetings held in the rest of the 8 districts; less than two meetings per year took place in 5 West Bengal tea districts during 2016-…

India’s Manas National Park illustrates the human dimension of rhino conservation

 The fortunes of the park’s rhinos are intertwined with ethnic politics in India’s restive Assam State

Comfort backpack

An improved plucking basket promises to alleviate muscular pain and fatigue, two major health problems faced by tea garden workers

Just like a forest

Analog forestry mimics a forest to create an economically productive and ecologically diverse landscape

Vignettes from Sri Lanka's cloud country

In Sri Lanka, organic farmers draw inspiration from endemic practices such as home gardens or analog forestry, and have also adapted ‘…

Tata Tea under scanner for poor living condition and coercion of workers

World Bank authorises enquiry after investing US $8 million in the global beverages company

West Bengal labour department's tea garden survey kept under wraps

Excerpts and recommendations from the unpublished survey report of all tea gardens in the state that reveals miserable living conditions of …

Polluting units shut in Kaziranga

Green tribunal fines state, Centre for allowing stone crushers, brick kilns near Assam park

Crisis brewing

Collapse of the former Soviet market and an indifferent attitude to quality clips Nilgiris tea industry

West Bengal’s tea-tribe voters have a jumbo problem

Workers in Majherdabri tea estate say no candidate is addressing their fear of elephant attacks

Assam moves to curb pesticides in vegetables, tea

Pesticide limits to be set for vegetables; cultivators could be fined or banned from undertaking cultivation if their products exceed limit

Why are tea plantation workers dying of hunger?

Lack of oversight by state governments, along with low wages and tough working conditions, is causing starvation deaths, says a fact finding team

Simmering discontent over tea

The newfound success of brand Darjeeling is fuelling suspicion between planters and workers. Sayantan Bera reports

Worms thriving in brains, Assam’s tea garden workers lose lives, livelihoods

Neurocysticercosis triggered by tapeworms that easily travel between humans and pigs present a real, imminent danger of zoonosis; an …

Crushed and torn

Closed tea gardens of West Bengal are enclaves of death and destitution. Speculative ownership and a callous government have prolonged the crisis,…

Daily Court Digest: Major environment orders (December 21, 2022)

Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court, the high courts and the National Green Tribunal  

Kaziranga’s no-development zone has 90 factories

Green tribunal orders closure of all industries that began operations after the zone was notified in 1996; others to use clean fuel

Simply Put: Wretched of the earth

Unable to get food, Adivasi tea worker in north Bengal estate dies of starvation

Fact-finding team formed by independent labour organisations reveals the worker and his wife had no access to food under the public …

How sweet

An encounter with industry's sugar-free politics

To one's taste

Trouble brewing again

Assam researchers make soft drinks, toffees from tea leaves

TEA TRIP

TEA IN TROUBLE