More than 80 million Ujjwala connections have been distributed already, and the Union Budget 2021 has extended the scheme to an additional 10 million people. But a considerable section of the beneficiaries fails to sustain the use of LPG as cooking fuel exclusively. This must change.
The Bhadawari breed of buffaloes, extant in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, are said to produce milk with the highest fat content anywhere in the world. But, they are dwindling in number and without intervention, may die out altogether.
More than 2,000 trucks daily pass through the
Raigarh-Sundargarh highway spewing coal dust on the houses, crops and water bodies of 45 villages. The promised coal corridor is still missing, yet the Kulda mine has got permission for expansion.
The Central Indian Plateau is one of the poorest pockets in India and the Adivasi communities in this region are the most deprived in the country. A livelihoods tracking initiative has been initiated in Jharkhand and Odisha, and its report with important findings will be released next month.
During the acute drought of 1965, it was the forests and forest produce, such as tubers, that prevented villagers in Nuapada from dying of hunger. A large number of tribal and forest dwelling communities in the district are now fighting to get their community rights under the FRA, 2006.
Today is ‘World Day against Trafficking in Persons’. Recently, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development published the draft Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, which is a step in the right direction. However, there is a need to add more provisions in the bill in order to strengthen it and make it more meaningful.
Today is International Tiger Day and dispersal is integral to the life history of tigers. But several factors, including infrastructure projects, fragment tiger corridors thus impeding tiger movement. Maintaining habitat connectivity to enable dispersal is arguably the most pressing imperative for tiger conservation today.
Over 98% of India’s chromite reserve is found in the Sukinda region of Odisha where water, air and land is highly contaminated due to chromite mining and the local Adivasis suffer its impact. Despite large funds collected in the state under the District Mineral Foundation, money is being used to build an international hockey stadium and recreation facilities.
In 2012, a young male tiger, RBT38, ventured out of Ranthambore looking to establish a home of his own. A couple of years later, he returned to Ranthambore to mate. But, in the last three years, tigers from Ranthambore have dispersed and bred outside the park. These are promising signs for the recovery of this isolated tiger population across northwestern India.
Despite the state government launching several initiatives, such as Mukhya Mantri Didi Kitchen, helplines for migrant workers and a 100-day job guarantee scheme for urban unskilled workers, Jharkhand needs to do a lot more to improve its performance on nutrition that has taken a hit in the pandemic.