India Last Week #84
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment:
“India, the world’s top importer of urea, has agreed to buy the nitrogen-based fertilizer at sharply higher prices than in a previous tender as the Middle East conflict disrupts supplies and pushes global benchmarks higher. Indian Potash Ltd., which imports the crop nutrient for the government, will secure 1.5 million tons for delivery on the west coast at $935 per ton, while another 1 million tons will be delivered on the east coast at $959 per ton, according to people familiar with the matter. The offers are almost 90% higher than what India agreed to pay in a tender before the start of the conflict, said the people, who asked not to be named due to the commercial sensitivity of the information… A fertilizer ministry spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment… The South Asian nation’s urea production relies heavily on natural gas, much of it from the Middle East and used to make ammonia, a key feedstock for the fertilizer. Supply disruptions following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced some regional producers to idle plants last month. Indian authorities are now in talks with major producers and exporters to secure direct shipments of nitrogen-based and phosphatic fertilizers. Global urea prices have surged since the war began, with nearly 45% of global supply moving through the Persian Gulf, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.” Read more: Pratik Parija and Siddhartha Singh, Bloomberg
“India’s 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) has achieved first criticality (start of controlled fission chain reaction) after meeting all the stipulations of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which had issued clearance after a rigorous review of safety of the plant systems. This marks “a historic step in providing long-term energy security and advancing indigenous nuclear technology capabilities,” according to a Science Ministry press release. The technology development and design of PFBR, a sodium-cooled fast reactor, was indigenously done by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), an R&D Centre of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). It was built & commissioned by Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd (BHAVINI), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the DAE… With the achievement of first criticality, India moves closer to realising its three-stage nuclear power programme. Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) represents stage two and forms the vital bridge between the current fleet of pressurised heavy water reactors (stage one) and the future deployment of thorium-based reactors (stage three), leveraging India’s abundant thorium resources for long-term clean energy generation… capabilities in nuclear fuel cycle technologies, advanced materials, reactor physics and large-scale engineering.” Read more: Nuclear Engineering International
“India’s liquefied natural gas importers have accelerated purchases from the spot market, taking advantage of a recent dip in prices, as the country looks to ease a supply crunch triggered by the war in West Asia. Bharat Petroleum Corp., Gail India Ltd. and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. bought shipments for delivery between April and June at below $16 per million British thermal units, according to traders with knowledge of the matter… The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and attacks on the world’s largest LNG export plant in Qatar, have disrupted a fifth of the world’s supply of the super-chilled fuel. India is among the hardest-hit consumers, with LNG deliveries down 14% compared with the same time last year on a 30-day moving average, ship data shows. The latest move comes after spot LNG prices fell to the lowest level in over a month. Prices more than doubled after the war began, rising to roughly $25 per million Btu and forcing Indian buyers to curb purchases and reduce supplies to industrial customers. Still, prices remain about 50% higher than pre-war levels.” Read more: The Hindu Businessline
“In January 2021, two Protected Areas in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands—Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and the Megapode Sanctuary—were denotified (here and here) to make way for a mega infrastructure project on Great Nicobar Island… The Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (SC-NBWL), which recommended the denotifications, does not have statutory authority to de-notify Protected Areas. A 13 November 2000 Supreme Court order prohibits any dereservation or denotification of forest land, wildlife sanctuaries, or national parks without the Court’s prior approval. In responses to right-to-information (RTI) queries filed by the first author with the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) said on 7 November 2025 that “no information is available in this regard”, indicating that no such approval was obtained… A closer examination of the committee’s records—minutes of 58 meetings, along with responses obtained through a series of RTIs filed with the MoEFCC—indicate that the functioning of the SC-NBWL departs from its statutory mandate and established conservation framework… Most approvals for diversions granted by the SC‑NBWL violate the 1972 WPA, as we reported in the first part of the investigation.” Read more: Prakriti Srivastava And Prerna Singh Bindra, Article 14
“A recent study published in the journal Climate Dynamics has offered the clearest explanation yet of how the threat of moist heat, a combination of high temperature and high humidity that interferes with the body’s ability to cool itself, is unfolding across India, especially Kerala. Led by Akshay Deoras at the University of Reading in the UK, the research draws on more than 80 years of weather data to show how the southwest monsoon itself governs the timing and geography of moist heatwaves. “Our research shows for the first time that the monsoon is the key driver of where and when this deadly risk develops,” Deoras said… Kerala, with its long coastline, dense vegetation and monsoon driven climate, has always lived with humidity. But the baseline is shifting. Warmer days are now accompanied by warmer nights, reducing the body’s ability to recover. Urban areas are retaining heat for longer… The new study places Kerala within a larger national pattern shaped by the internal rhythms of the monsoon… For communities that depend on outdoor labour, the implications are immediate. Fishworkers returning from sea report intense fatigue even during early hours. Construction workers in urban areas describe conditions where dehydration sets in rapidly despite frequent breaks.” Read more: K A Shaji, Down to Earth
“A manufacturing ecosystem for lithium-ion cells is slowly coming up in India, but electric vehicle makers should not expect an immediate cost windfall, according to Vikram Gourineni, executive director at Amara Raja Energy & Mobility. Locally produced cells will carry a minimum 15% price premiums over imports in the near term, as it takes time to create a meaningful upstream ecosystem from raw materials to components that China spent two decades building, Gourineni told ET. Until domestic cell makers achieve a scale of 8-10 GWh and a supporting supply chain develops around them, the economics simply will not work in the favour of EV makers, he said. Amara Raja is targeting 2027 for its first bulk production of lithium-ion cells, becoming the second company after Ola Electric to commence local cell production… The company will take a graduated approach to scaling. Cell production will begin this year at a megawatt-hour scale, with commercial samples supplied to Indian customers for qualification… In a significant strategic pivot, Amara Raja has revised its capacity allocation across the planned 16 GWh, moving from a largely mobility-focused plan to an equal split between mobility and energy storage solutions (ESS).” Read more: Shally Mohile, Economic Times
Economy:
“A downward revision in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) following the base-tear revision and a sharp depreciation of the rupee have proved to be a slippage for India’s position in global ranking. The country has slipped to sixth rank in 2025 (FY26) and 2026 (FY27), falling behind the UK after claiming the fifth position for three straight years, showed the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest data. At current prices, India’s GDP is estimated to be $3.92 trillion in 2025 (FY26) and $4.15 trillion in 2026 (FY27)… The slippage follows the government’s announcement that India had become the fourth-largest economy. The IMF in its October 2026 update had a more optimistic projection for India, in which the country was seen overtaking Japan in FY27 and did not fall behind the UK in recent years. The projections have been revised downwards as India’s revamped GDP, which saw the base year updated from 2011-12 to 2022-23, led to a smaller economy due to a correction in overestimation… The downward revision is evident across years, with India’s GDP estimates in the April update consistently lower than those in October — for instance, the 2027 projection has been cut to $4.58 trillion from $4.96 trillion.” Read more: Payal Bhattacharya and Rupanjal Chauhan, Mint
“Apart from the fuel supply and price shock, the West Asia war has impacted a wide range of items from popular fast-moving consumer items such as instant noodles, juice, milk packs, beverages to automotive components for the country’s largest carmaker. While constrained supply and higher prices of packaging materials have led to a slower offtake at many production units of these FMCG firms, energy conservation efforts at some of these plants have resulted in underutilised capacity… Higher packaging costs and issues with supply of plastic caps and bottles have brought trouble for the beverages industry as well. Key players in the mineral water bottle space have hiked prices for distributors and resellers… As companies attempt to recalibrate pricing of their products, many FMCG makers are also opting for reduction in grammage of their products, known more popularly as ‘shrinkflation’… The Ministry of Heavy Industries has also urged companies to shift factory operations from oil-based fuels to electricity and to use recycled aluminium or alternative materials as shortages and costs rise, according to a March 25 advisory reported by Reuters… Price hikes have also been attempted by manufacturers of white goods such as TV sets and air conditioners, which had earlier seen a bump-up in consumption demand after a sharp reduction in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate from 28% to 18% in September 2025.” Read more: Aanchal Magazine, Indian Express
“Amid India’s agressive push for global trade integration, the existing free trade agreements (FTA) are not translating to higher exports, as a NITI Aayog report on Monday showed that India’s exports to FTA partners contracted by 7% year-on-year during the October-December quarter of the last financial year. The exports to FTA partners had slipped by 9% during the first quarter of FY26 and 7% during the second quarter. India’s trade performance with FTA countries assumes significance as New Delhi’s trade has deepened with preferential trading partners. The share of trade with FTA partners has increased significantly from 4.6% in 2006 to 28.8% in 2024, indicating a more than six-fold rise, the NITI Aayog Trade Watch quarterly report showed. “India’s exports with its FTA partner countries in !3 FY26 stood at $40.26 billion, reflecting a decline of 7% y-o-y, indicating some moderation in export performance across key partner countries. In contrast, total imports from FTA partners increased by 6% y-o-y, reaching $70.98 billion during the quarter,” it said.” Read more: Ravi Dutta Mishra, Indian Express
“Fertiliser production in India fell to a five-year low in March, reflecting input shortages triggered by the ongoing war in West Asia, even as the combined index of eight core industries (popularly called core sector index) contracted by 0.4% on an annual basis, the weakest reading since August 2024 when it shrank 1.5%. The data, released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Monday, showed that if fertilisers were excluded from the index—their weight is just 2.63%—the overall index would have remained flat instead of contracting. The March contraction in the index was driven by four sectors: fertilisers, crude oil, coal and electricity. Fertiliser output plunged 24.6% from a year earlier, by far the sharpest fall among the eight industries. In absolute terms, the fertiliser production index came in at 95.7 in March 2026, the lowest this value has been since April 2021, when it came in at 88.3… Natural gas is both fuel and feedstock for fertiliser plants. Its supplies had to be reduced to maintain no disruption in PNG (Piped Natural Gas) and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) supplies for cooking and automobiles. When read with the fact that the March production data shows a fall of about 25%, largely in sync with the temporary 30% reduction in natural gas supplies for fertiliser plants, an enhancement in gas supplies in April should help revive production.” Read more: Sreedev Krishnakumar, Hindustan Times
Foreign Policy & Security:
“The dust — nuclear and otherwise — has yet to settle on how the United States-Israel war against Iran will ultimately end, but its impact on India’s growth projections is evident… India is by no means the only country thus affected, but as the world’s most populous nation, it is bound to feel the effects more acutely. Given the little attention that the U.S. has paid to India’s economic concerns, it is surprising that the Narendra Modi government continues to pay heed to U.S. unilateral sanctions amid the war. This month, as temporary waivers on many of those sanctions come up for renewal, it is time for New Delhi to unequivocally denounce them and declare that it will no longer abide by them. A cursory list of U.S. sanctions with which India has partially or fully complied is both illustrative and eye-opening. Since May 2019, India has not purchased any Iranian or Venezuelan oil following U.S. President Donal Trump’s demand for ‘zeroing out’… There is little evidence that yielding to unilateral U.S. sanctions curbs its appetite, as India’s experience since 2019 shows; it leads to additional demands for compliance… Had India not complied with sanctions against the Chabahar port, built rail and road infrastructure in Iran, and not curtailed its plans for the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) through Iran’s Bandar Abbas, it may have had connectivity in place that could have reduced its dependence on imports coming through the Strait of Hormuz today. Moreover, India’s compliance with U.S. international sanctions has further weakened the rules-based international order and the UN’s multilateral mandate.” Read more: Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
“India will submit its defence early this week in the two US Trade Representative (USTR) Section 301 investigations, which New Delhi believes are “factually baseless”, sources said. The government is set to argue that no Indian policies in the targeted areas were designed to, or did, harm US commercial interests in its bid to come clean in the investigation and avoid additional tariffs and other penalties… On March 11, 2026, the USTR launched a probe into structural excess capacity especially targeting manufacturing sectors where India and other countries covered in the probe maintain a trade surplus. These include specifically steel, automotive products, apparel/footwear, electrical equipment and pharmaceuticals. The US alleged these policies displace US domestic production… “India’s defense is likely to focus on the legal requirements of specificity and determination under Section 301, with New Delhi likely to argue that the USTR has not mentioned specific policies or procedural inactions that demonstrably harm US commercial interests. In the investigation on excess capacity, merely having a trade surplus is not evidence of irreparable injury,” the source said. While concerns on use of forced-labour imports is a genuine one, but the probe against India is misguided and without any factual basis, the source added.” Read more: Amiti Sen, The Hindu Businessline
“India is a highly oil-dependent state, making it vulnerable to global price shocks. Recent developments, including U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil, U.S. tariffs on countries trading with Iran, and the escalation of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, have revealed critical gaps in India’s oil security strategy… Faced with sudden disruptions to its oil imports, India has four options: return to purchasing Russian oil; diversify beyond the Strait of Hormuz; enhance domestic strategic reserves; and develop a long-term oil security strategy, including measures for energy transition… India is primarily dependent on five countries for oil: Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the United States. These present distinct advantages such as discounted prices, short voyage durations, oil-grade suitability, and long-term supply contracts and investments… India must implement a renewed energy security strategy to better address such geopolitical and economic disruptions… While these measures are critical, India lacks a distinct oil security strategy that will enable a gradual shift to renewable energy to meet domestic demand. Dedicated efforts must address several priorities—expanding reserves and SPR facilities, permitting private and foreign company participation in Indian reserves, and enabling long-term supply contracts to reduce price volatility.” Read more: Vrinda Sahai, Carnegie India
“On March 26, China’s State Council announced the creation of a new county-equivalent to a district-level administrative unit in the Chinese political-administrative system — in Xinjiang, called Cenling. Its creation is the result of administrative restructuring of the Kargilik county (Yecheng county, in Chinese) in the western half of Aksai Chin under the Kashgar prefecture. India’s Ministry of External Affairs waited more than two weeks before responding to questions from the media to say that it “categorically rejected any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India.” New Delhi’s official statement was perhaps a little more strongly worded than its response in January 2025 following a similar creation, in December 2024, of two new counties, He’an and Hekang, in the Hotan prefecture in the eastern half of Aksai Chin… The formal announcement of the creation of the Cenling county is the culmination of a year-long preparation to create new villages and townships, including the new county seat, Xinhua town… The forced settlement of nomadic populations as well as the influx of the Han from other parts of China in newly constituted administrative units, including xiaokang cun - newly-settled or rejuvenated villages - along the LAC have several long-term implications for India… While the Indian government has responded to China’s development of xiaokang villages with it own Vibrant Villages Programme, it needs to do a better job of responding to Chinese administrative changes on occupied Indian territory than mere rhetoric.” Read more: Devendra Kumar and Jabin T. Jacob, The Tribune
People & Politics:
“India has long looked away from the tinder-box that is industrial labor relations. That’s because its factories have mostly been peaceful, despite enormous levels of inequality. This week, however, violent protests broke out in a Delhi suburb over poor working conditions, ending that serenity. The many companies that have invested in the satellite city of Noida — including Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp., as well as manufacturing giants like Samsung Electronics Co. — will worry that labor relations are finally breaking down… The immediate provocation for workers’ anger in Noida, which is in UP, was news that the Haryana government had hiked minimum wages there by 35% to $160 a month. Protestors complained to the media that those who worked in UP, in contrast, had their pay increased over the past decade at half the speed of Haryana or Delhi. Meanwhile, the cost of living spiked upwards — driven most recently by the scarcity of cooking gas following the Iran war… Officials needed to act quickly. UP, India’s most populous state but also among its poorest, long had a reputation for anarchy; Adityanath, since he took over as chief minister in 2017, has focused on repairing that image, believing that would lure investors… State officials somehow managed to make the message even worse than it was. In an effort to downplay the protests, they claimed that it was a plot by Pakistan-based terrorists. Few will believe that theory. If that’s the default reaction from the Indian establishment when anything goes wrong, then it has seriously misjudged what international investors want to hear… Workers aren’t asking for too much. The labor codes can be made fair if they applied equally; they need to be easy to implement, allow for the ability to hire and fire — but also ensure secure workplaces and some form of accountability for employers.” Read more: Mihir Sharma, Bloomberg
“Residential segregation of marginalized groups is a well-established driver of persistent inequality in wealthy countries. Segregated communities tend to have worse access to employment networks, public services, and social capital, and face more entrenched stereotypes in the broader population… In this descriptive paper, the authors employ a novel dataset to reveal settlement and segregation patterns of marginalized groups across Indian cities and villages, and the relationship between these settlement patterns and access to public services. They focus on the segregation of members of Scheduled Castes (SCs), often called Dalits or (previously) Untouchables, and of Muslims… To conduct their analysis, the authors link three administrative datasets: India’s Population Census (2011), the Socioeconomic and Caste Census (2012), and the Economic Census (2013), covering 63% of India’s population. Together these allow neighborhood-level description of demographics, infrastructure access (water, sewerage, electricity), and the presence of public and private schools and medical facilities… Establishing these baseline facts is a necessary first step toward causal work… Muslims and SCs exhibit notably high levels of residential segregation. By way of international comparison, their segregation levels fall slightly below those of Black Americans and non-white people in England and Wales but exceed those of minority groups in almost every other country for which comparable data exists… Muslims are relatively more segregated in cities than in rural areas compared with SCs; relatedly, SC urban segregation has marginally declined.” Read more: Anjali Adukia, Sam Asher, Kritarth Jha, Paul Novosad, and Brandon Tan, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics
“Millions of people in the Indian state of West Bengal have been stripped of their vote ahead of a critical state election this week, after a controversial electoral revision described by critics as a “bloodless political genocide” and mass disenfranchisement of minorities. In West Bengal, a total of 9.1 million names have been deleted from the register, more than 10% of the electorate. While many were dead or duplicates, about 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsions, but still been removed… The divisive exercise by the central Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government to “purify” the electoral roll – in the words of home minister Amit Shah – has led to a chorus of fury. The drawing up of a new electoral register has been carried out at unprecedented speed, ahead of the West Bengal state elections which will begin on Thursday… According to experts and organisations, Muslims and other religious minorities have been disproportionately expunged from the electoral roll in West Bengal, leading to allegations of deliberate targeting and persecution. “As per our research, religion has been the biggest differentiator,” said Sabir Ahamed, who leads Sabar institute which has been closely monitoring and documenting the cases based on official data… In some Muslim-majority constituencies, almost half the voters have been deleted, including those who have documents to show they are born and bred Indian citizens and either they, or their parents, were on the 2002 voter roll, the cut off point for voter eligibility.” Read more: Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan, The Guardian
“The ferocity and the suddenness of the recent workers protests in Noida took many by surprise. Agitated industrial workers took to the streets in leaderless throngs, overturning and burning police SUVs, blocking traffic and destroying public property. This scale and militancy of industrial protests have not been seen in years… A war in the Persian Gulf, thousands of miles away, made the simmering discontent boil over. The sudden shortage of domestic gas and the spike in prices of alternative fuel and food items brought these folks to the end of their tether. The immediate trigger was a recent 35% hike in minimum wages in Haryana. The UP government’s response was heavy-handed. More than 300 workers were arrested and many beaten up. Blame for the violence was heaped on ‘external instigators’ and ‘Pakistani handlers operating through WhatsApp groups’… These flashes of industrial action show the Union’s government’s long-term legislative solution of annulling 29 labour laws and creating 4 Labour Codes in their place, is not working… The broad-brush arrangement worked out was -- while workers should have access to a minimum wage, basic social and occupational security and health assistance, the legal tools that supported unionization, industrial action, recourse to labour courts and other enforcement measures should be minimized and discouraged… What we are therefore now witnessing is spontaneous, raw and violent protests. There is no organised trade union leadership, and collective bargaining has been stamped out. In its place workers are resorting to collective action hoping for instant results.” Read more: Gurbir Singh, New Indian Express
Tech:
“Over the past month, several internet users have received notifications from X or Instagram that some of their posts, or even complete accounts, have been censored and blocked. Facebook pages with millions of followers have been banned. It’s not just users. Supabase, a service developers use for building apps, found itself blocked in India, without notice… In March 2015, the Supreme Court delivered what remains the foundational verdict on online speech in this country. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, the court struck down the breathtakingly overbroad section 66A of the IT Act, which had been used to jail people for Facebook posts. But the case did something equally important that gets less attention. The court strengthened the safe harbour provision under section 79, which protects platforms from liability for what users say online… Crucially, the court said that the affected user, if identifiable, needed to be informed and given a hearing. In the eleven years since the judgment, these protections have been dismantled, and a digital censorship infrastructure has emerged. First, amendments to the IT Rules in 2021 expanded the scope of section 79, bringing digital news outlets under a provision that doesn’t regulate them… Two, the home ministry’s Sahyog portal functions, without parliamentary sanction, as a hotline from govt to platforms for takedown orders under Section 79… Three, the amendments to IT Rules in Feb 2026 compressed the compliance window for blocking orders from 36 to three hours, the shortest in the world. News reports suggest a further reduction to one hour… Four, the architecture has widened laterally: more govt agencies now have the power to block speech under section 69A.” Read more: Apar Gupta and Nikhil Pahwa, Internet Freedom Foundation
“Silicon Valley’s earnings calls are already answering the most important question about artificial intelligence: where the money ends up. There’s an undeniable sense of triumph in India’s tech ecosystem right now, but we might be celebrating a digital victory we haven’t actually won. If you look across the country, the physical transformation is staggering. We are investing massive capital in hyper-scale data centre parks in Navi Mumbai. Legacy IT giants are weaving AI into enterprise networks and digital public infrastructure. The government has stepped in to subsidise tens of thousands of GPUs (graphics processing units) for startups. We are doing everything right on the hardware front. But beneath the ribbon-cutting and the applause lies an uncomfortable economic reality: India’s much-hyped AI boom is directly funding Silicon Valley. In effect, we have signed up for a “Token Tax”. Every single time a developer in Bengaluru uses an AI coding assistant, or an e-commerce app personalises a shopping feed, or a local bank automates a customer query in Hindi, a micro-payment leaves the country. We are pouring concrete, laying the fibre-optic cables, and buying the servers. But the actual intelligence — the cognitive engine running on top of all that infrastructure — remains foreign-owned.” Read more: Nishant Sahdev, The Hindu Businessline
Chart of the week:
Strategic oil inventories in select countries (as of December 2025)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Bonus:
“Do scholars need another book about the Green Revolution? In the past twenty-six years, books by Kristin L. Ahlberg (Transplanting the Great Society: Lyndon Johnson and Food for Peace, 2008), Nick Cullather (The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia, 2013), and Benjamin Robert Siegel (Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India, 2018) have documented how a postcolonial India went from famine to feast through a mix of already established methods (devoting more land to farming) as well as newer techniques, such as high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds… With so much great Green Revolution literature available to scholars, how does Prakash Kumar’s A History of India’s Green Revolution: Reign of Technocracy stand out? It does so by focusing on three particular Indian states: Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Tarai, which is now part of Uttarakhand… Building off his impressive 2012 publication, Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India, Kumar has connected and fleshed out the many decades of scientific research and technological improvements made in India (both pre- and postcolonial) and the work done by Indians themselves… In chapter 3, Kumar lays out how Independent India struggled with implementing genuine land reform campaigns. Despite national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and their interest in, even preference for, left-leaning economic planning, state and local leaders were often aligned with landowners who welcomed independence but not an overhaul of the society that they benefited from… Kumar concludes his excellent book by reminding his readers that while food was plentiful in post-Green Revolution India, poverty remained.” Read more: Marc Reyes, H-Environment
“It’s a searing hot day in Mattiyarenthal village, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In March, temperatures regularly touch highs from 95 F to 105 F. The sharp, pungent scent of chile peppers clings to the air. It’s just one of hundreds of villages in this area that grow this crop. Pandiamma is surrounded by the carpets of deep, cherry-shaped mundu, a distinctive variety of red chile grown in this region. The farmers sow seeds from October to November — monsoon season — and harvest the peppers from January until May, keeping a watchful eye over each batch as it lays out to dry for five to ten days. “Growing chile has always been a woman’s job,” Pandiamma says. That’s true not only for the thousands of chile farmers but for all farmers in the region. “More than 70% of agricultural activities in this region have always been carried out by women farmers,” says Vallal Kannan, a program coordinator for Krishi Vigyan Kendra, a government-run agricultural center… The women farmers agree that in the chile pepper fields, the demanding nature of the work discourages men. You need to crouch over the chile plant, plucking each pod by hand, and then dry and sort it, they say. And the plant is seasonal, which means that most chile farmers will find themselves out of work after six months… In a good year, one kilo of top quality chiles — around 2.2 pounds — fetches a little over 300 rupees — the equivalent of about $3. During a good harvest season, the average woman farmer whose family owns an acre of land earns around $2,000 annually.” Read more: Kamala Thiagarajan, NPR