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Hand-on training in permaculture by the world’s leading experts, ahead of the International Permaculture Convergence 2017
With Satish Kumar, well-known peace and environmental activist and founder of Schumacher College and Resurgence Magazine
Transformative Cities Awards for Public Alternatives in Water, Energy and Housing
Kerala Swadeshi Movement’s 53rd Festival – an Alternative Learning space and experiment in promoting localisation
“Building the World Parliament 2017” – International Conference featuring the Earth Constitution
2017 edition of the leading international event for the development of the organic sector worldwide
Call for applications to a one-of-a-kind incubation program exclusively for nonprofits in clean energy
Join practitioners from around the world to learn and strategize about the future of the permaculture movement
An occasion for thinkers, writers, journalists, artists, activists and students to explore possibilities of dialogue and transformative action
The Society for Human Ecology’s 2017 conference – Theme: Envisioning Pathways to Just and Sustainable Futures
From The Citizen: “Hitler used organophosphate gases to execute thousands in his gas chambers, we are now using the same to kill our farmers in the open fields,” said Kishor Tiwari on the recent deaths of more than 40 farmers from pesticide poisoning in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal. Tiwari heads a government task force for farmers’ welfare.
If you think farmers have suffered unknowingly, you are mistaken. It’s in fact part of a global design. For GDP to grow, the prescription is to reduce the dependency of a large proportion of the population on agriculture. The entire effort is to create conditions that force people to abandon farming and migrate to cities.
From The Better India: Ashok Sonule of Kolhapur has left his harvest-ready jowar crop remain on his land for birds to feed on. His logic is simple. “Birds and animals have suffered a lot this year, with lakes drying up and crops wilting. There are few fields in this area the birds can call home.”
From The Indian Express: According to Kishor Tiwari, chief of a Maharashtra government task force for the welfare of farmers, more than 40 farmers had died and at least 2,000 more hospitalised from pesticide inhalation in Vidarbha and Marathwada. He has termed the deaths of farmers from pesticide inhalation as “genocide committed by the state”.
Madhu Ramnath writes: Time and again we have heard that the Naxal insurgency is due to “under development” in areas like Bastar. Education is also supposed to deter Naxalism, according to some, but one may ask whose education? Fundamentally it’s about respect, dignity and trust in our behaviour towards others, in this case the Adivasi.
The National Convention of Green Socialists was held at Tumakuru, Karnataka on 24 Sep 2017, as part of the ongoing ‘Tax Denial Satyagraha’ against the imposition of G.S.T. on handmade products. Among other things, the protesters demanded zero-tax on natural products, grown through natural farming, such as natural foods, etc, treating them as handmade products.
From GGI News: In 1996, the World Bank directed India to move 400 million people out of agriculture. Former PM Manmohan Singh had repeatedly expressed the need to shift 70% farmers. Only then will cheap labour be available for infrastructure development. The economic design is well laid out. Agriculture is being killed for economic growth.
It’s been said that the Sardar Sarovar dam would provide many with access to water and power. But there’s no such thing as a free thaali, as Gujaratis, of all people, must surely know. Someone has to bear the cost, and that cost, as with all major development projects, has been borne by the poor.
From Down to Earth: India’s vicious cycle of crippling drought and then devastating floods, which happens every year, is getting a new normal. First, floods and droughts come together. Secondly, rainfall is not only variable but also extreme. There’s only one answer: obsessive attention to building millions and millions of connected and living water structures.
From Jacobin Magazine: Increasingly, extreme weather events including the annual floods are being recognized as the new normal. Less commonly noted is how this “new normal” tends to disproportionately hit the underclasses—the urban poor, agriculturalists, coastal communities, and poor women. In short, the greatest victims of global warming will be those least responsible for it.
Nowadays there are no pilots, there are no independent evaluations, no concept of conflict of interest. I am wondering if this is also the case even in your “Rally for Rivers”. This letter’s not just about your rally, but expresses my concerns about “development” in this country. And how the Babas are all in it.
From The Third Pole: For the third year in a row, India’s monsoon season has produced floods in the northwest/northeast, while south India has a rainfall deficit. The key question right now is whether we’re headed towards increased monsoon extremes, or whether global warming is causing shifts in the duration, intensity and frequency of rainfall.
Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges.
From Live Mint: The protesting farmers demanded a waiver of loans and better prices for their harvest. They want a say in trade policy which they think have a pro-consumer bias. They’re aware of the bad debts of the industries. They also ask why farmers should bear the burden of keeping food inflation in check.
Prof. Irfan Habib writes: This year is the centenary of one of the most remarkable episodes of modern Indian history, the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 that joined the national movement with the great struggle of the peasantry for bread and land, exposing how the twin processes of drain of wealth and de-industrialisation had ruined India.
From Climate Central: If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of eastern India and Bangladesh will exceed the 95°F threshold by century’s end, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found. The findings raise the issue of environmental justice, as these populations have done the least to cause global warming.
From Sanhati: A history of the 240 year-old Raniganj Coalfield– the story of its workers –the many lives that have been spent in its shadows, displaced by coal and depending on it for survival –would be a tale every bit as expansive as the Mahabharata. This two-part article gives a short glimpse of this history.
Colin Todhunter writes: At a time when India commemorates the end of British rule, it finds itself under siege from international capital. Its not only on course to become an even weaker and more hobbled state permanently beholden to US state-corporate interests, but it is heading towards environmental catastrophe much faster than many may think.
From The Wire: With a predominantly tribal population, Barkheda is a typical central Indian village. A few years ago, the villagers took charge of their natural resources and established a village executive committee. The committee governs all the water bodies of Barkheda, which now has rules on water usage, based on the principles of equity.
Frontline reports: Across the country, large tracts of land are being earmarked for exclusive solar power parks. The rocky terrain of Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district has emerged as the largest solar power-generating hub in India, but the nomadic communities that have lived there for generations find themselves dispossessed of land and reduced to abject poverty.
