Describe how unsustainable activities may lead to economic crisis

Bharat C. Raval, president of the Indian Salt Manufacturers’ Association (ISMA), started his career as a salt inspector with the Gujarat government. After spending 19 months in the government, he was attracted towards the salt cooperatives initiated by none other than Dr. Verghese Kurien, the ‘Milkman of India’. Kurien trained Mr. Raval at the Sabarmati Salt Farmers’ Society where he joined in April 1988 as a procurement executive. Nearly 35 years later, Mr. Raval feels that the salt industry is facing huge challenges in meeting the demand and in tackling the realisation crisis faced by salt farmers. Initially, the society where Mr. Raval worked produced 30,000 metric tonnes of salt. It reached up to 7,00,000 metric tonnes in three years, by 1991. “We have also operated CSR activities those days by providing health infrastructure support to salt farmers. Farmers were getting ₹ 17/per tonne when we entered the sector and the the price went up in the first years to ₹27 per tonne and … [Read more...] about Crisis in salt sector hits 5 lakh people in Gujarat

Greta Thunberg has urged society to take on its "historic responsibility" to tackle the global climate crisis during an appearance at Glastonbury. Delivering a speech from the festival's Pyramid Stage, the environmental activist gave the crowd a stark warning that the world is facing a "climate and ecological emergency". "The biosphere is not just changing, it is destabilising, it is breaking down," the 19-year-old said, before stressing that the "consequences could be catastrophic". "And no, unfortunately, this is not the new normal," she added. "This crisis will continue to get worse until we manage to hold the constant destruction of our life-supporting systems, until we prioritise people and planet over profit and greed," she added. Advertisement Placing blame on global leaders, Ms Thunberg they have "actively created loopholes" and society has come to "expect" them to lie. "We should be fighting for people and for nature, but instead we are … [Read more...] about Glastonbury: Greta Thunberg appears at music festival to urge society to take action against climate change crisis

As Russia’s access to its traditional markets of exports and imports are hugely limited following its Ukraine invasion and the subsequent sanctions, Moscow is looking to develop new trade and investment relations with partners in Asia, including India, China and Southeast Asian countries, said Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska. Speaking on the sidelines of 25th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), also known as the ‘Russian Davos’, Mr. Deripaska, founder of RUSAL, one of the world’s largest aluminium producers, said there’s an understanding that “the new normal” would fundamentally change Russia’s economic reality. To facilitate such a shift, he said, Russia needed to create the same kind of infrastructure as it had built over the 12 years, from 1991 to 2003, with Europe. This includes setting up new logistics routes and related infrastructure, customs procedures, trade agreements, infrastructure for settlements, gaining access to debt capital markets and … [Read more...] about ‘India, Russia should have direct trade and investment agreements’

Labour has not had much good news to celebrate in this election campaign, but there is one ray of hope for the party. The NHS is now cited by more people than Brexit when they are asked to choose from a list of issues likely to determine how they will vote. According to Ipsos Mori, health (60 per cent) has overtaken Brexit (56 per cent). The NHS is the issue cited most often by people who backed Labour at the 2017 election (68 per cent). But it is also important for those who voted Conservative then: 58 per cent mention health, putting it in second place behind Brexit (69 per cent). However, other polls suggest that when people have to choose the single most important issue, Brexit trumps health. If the Conservatives were hoping their manifesto pledge to provide “50,000 more nurses” would help to neutralise the NHS issue, they will likely be disappointed. Although initially reported by much of the media as a pledge to recruit 50,000 extra nurses, it emerged that the … [Read more...] about Jeremy Corbyn hopes the NHS might be Boris Johnson’s weakness – but it’s not enough to stop a Tory win

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 9 BEIRUT (AP) — Dona-Maria Nammour was looking for a love story. The night she met Mazen Jaber for the first time, they ended up dancing for hours. But their tale is about more than a meet-cute to happily-ever-after romance. It is also about frictions in their native Lebanon over sectarian politics and civil rights, the role of religion and rival visions for how the crisis-ridden country moves forward. When the couple decided to get married, they wanted a civil ceremony, not a religious one — and not only because on paper she’s Catholic and he’s Druze; they also wanted to leave religious authorities out of their nuptials. “It is the best option for equality between us,” Nammour said. So they traveled to Cyprus to tie the knot. In Lebanon, an on-again, off-again debate over whether such civil marriages may be held inside the country, and for … [Read more...] about In Lebanon, how to say ‘I do’ sparks fierce debate

Boris Johnson has won his coveted majority and, though Brexit was his mantra through the campaign, this parliament has a lot more to deliver than that. The NHS was by some distance the most important election issue after our future relationship with the European Union. Politicians across the spectrum clearly thought it would swing more “undecided” voters than anything else, with representatives of all parties tucking their ties into their shirts to wander round hospitals and promise a better future. For the Conservatives, their promise of 40 new hospitals came under great scrutiny, and professionals and patients alike now expect to see the bricks and mortar to match the press releases and warm words. My colleagues and I, as surgeons, see at first hand what a chronic shortage of capacity in the NHS is doing to the service. When the NHS was first established in 1948, it took on a waiting list of 476,000 patients. No monitoring took place until 1951, when the number had … [Read more...] about Johnson must act quickly to shore up the creaking NHS – and tackle waiting lists first