The humble potato has come a long way IN 1852, Karl Marx described the peasantry as a sack of potatoes. The fickle attitude of farmers towards the short-lived Paris Commune had irked the old revolutionary. He would be a little less condescending towards peasants, elsewhere. But according to all evidence never thought it necessary to redeem himself with potatoes. The potato has been
Somalia's worst drought in a decade is pushing growing numbers of children into near-famine conditions and deepening the humanitarian crisis caused by political violence, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.
Some 3.2 million Somalis are among an estimated 19 million people in the Horn of Africa in urgent need of life-saving food assistance, top UN aid officials said.
Flowering of bamboo is a botanical enigma. The factors responsible for this are still not clearly established. Bamboos flower only once and die after flowering to regenerate from seeds1. The strange phenomenon of simultaneous flowering in bamboo clumps in vast areas is called gregarious flowering and causes ecological havoc. (Correspondence)
Sachitadananda Kuragunda,DH News Service,Chitradurga:
Chitradurga district is known for its heat and dust. In the last 100 years the district has suffered famine more than 50 times. Naturally, water is a political issue here. Every politician makes it a point to take an oath by Bhagiratha to get water to the district. In the current election too, water plays an important role.
The peasantry in the Deccan suffered from widespread indebtedness during the 19th century. In March 1881, after touring the rural areas of Poona and Ahmadnagar districts, which were still recovering from the devastations caused by famine and the credit crunch followed by the peasant revolt of 1876-79, Mahadev Govind Ranade proposed the establishment of agricultural-shetkari banks.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations has recently issued a report which reveals that currently there are 75 million (7.5 crore) people in the world who have fallen victim to famine and if the current crisis of price rise persists this count may reach the total of 920.25 million (92.25 crore).
