Thursday, September 8, 2011

Corruption behind farm-crisis


By Devinder Sharma
07 Sep 2011

Corruption has not only hindered development of India but its role in creating and aggravating farm crisis is no less critical. Corrupt scientists, bank officials and policy makers have pushed farmers to the brink.

I haven’t forgotten that night. Sitting with a group of farmers in a village in Ludhiana district in Punjab, at the height of the Green Revolution, a farmer showed me a bag of fertiliser that he brought from the market.

read more @: http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1691

Dark clouds over coal based power


By Shankar Sharma
26 Aug 2011

As supply of coal is becoming uncertain, the future of many coal-based power plants has come under clouds. However, this crisis could become an opportunity if focus is shifted to renewable energy options.

There have been many news reports in recent weeks that a reliable coal supply has become a critical issue for the Indian power sector in recent years, and that because of it the power supply situation is likely to go from bad to worse. The issue has the potential to be a game changer.

read more @: http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1687

Price-tag for ties with nature?


By Sudhirendar Sharma
24 Aug 2011

By ignoring the cultural dimension of climate change adaptation, the capital centric efforts through economic valuation of nature and people's relations with it, will alter forever peoples' attitude towards it.

Even at the cost of being refuted, it wouldn't be out of context to prophesise that globalisation of climate change will convert the Himalaya into a new playground for capitalism! Not only will the Himalaya get converted into a repository of Carbon to counter what others have voluntarily emitted but will charge for ecosystem services that it has been gifting to downstream people for several millennia.

read more @: http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1686