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Showing posts from April, 2019

Participatory water resource management projects mitigate drought effects in Kutch

By Chandan Nandy[1] The torrid afternoon sun is far from setting at Dholavira, one of two Harappan sites on the edge of the shimmering wilderness of Greater Rann of Kutch in northwest Gujarat’s Bachau block. A dirt-and-rocky track originating at Dungarivandh (hamlet), the last human habitation before the in hospitable and hostile aridity takes over, curves its way into an uninhabited pocket where two wells—one large but abandoned and the other relatively small containing life-saving water—and a narrow, 12-feet-long, concrete cattle trough sit among sandy dunes, craggy rocks and cactii. Further inquiry with my interlocutors revealed that the larger well, built with funds from the local panchayat sometime in 2003-04, but now lying in a dilapidated condition and stuffed with rocks and other detritus, is completely unusable. It cost the panchayat Rs 5 lakh to build this ‘well’ in a region that is now reeling in one of the worst droughts in 30 years. Less than 10 metres away is the smaller

Inadequate housing, healthcare, education, food, access to finance inter-related

By Moin Qazi* India has long been a testing ground for several western products, particularly in agriculture and medicine — making the most of loose regulations and genetic diversity of a huge population. It is done to help cut research costs dramatically for lucrative products to be sold in the West. The relationship is highly exploitative and many believe it represents a new colonialism. A new field hat has become a fertile ground for such experimentation and impoverishment of the poor is finance , and in particular insurance. India has always been a fertile ground for swindles that have bilked mostly low-income households of millions of rupees. The financially illiterate are usually easy pickings. The investors have been periodically gulled by nefarious characters into dubious schemes. The poor have now become wary of investing money even in credible organizations. These mercenary agents keep pitching the fantasy benefits ever higher to net gullible investors like sharks preying on