In limbo: So far, nearly 1,700 acres of land has been acquired in various villages for the project. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

For Mahalakshmi R., who has been riding a bike taxi for nearly two years, every increase in fuel and food prices directly cuts into her daily earnings. What was once enough for three modest meals a day is no longer sufficient. “I earn an average of ₹700 to ₹1,000 each day, depending on the number of rides. I spend around ₹200 on fuel for my vehicle. Earlier I could manage food expenses within ₹250 a day. Now I skip meals because the prices of everything have gone up. Even idlis cost much more now,” she says, as she waits for the next ride request.

As fuel costs climb and food becomes increasingly unaffordable, fresh concerns over a possible return to large-scale work-from-home arrangements have added another layer of uncertainty for drivers like her, whose livelihoods depend entirely on people commuting to office each day.

From Chennai to the southernmost districts of Tamil Nadu, rising food prices are steadily tightening household budgets, with restaurants and eateries quietly revising menu rates upward every few weeks. The burden on the public has intensified further with hikes in fuel prices — thrice in 10 days. On Saturday (May 23), the Union government increased the prices (petrol: ₹105.31 and diesel: ₹96.98 in Chennai). This increase came after a hike of ₹3 on May 15 and 90 paise on May 19. The availability of LPG cylinders continues to remain a concern, with several consumers reporting delivery delays stretching up to two weeks in certain cases.

Takeaway troubles

From middle-class families and bachelors to hostel students and information technology professionals dependent on daily takeaways, people across Tamil Nadu say the cost of putting food on the table has risen sharply, even as incomes and salaries have largely remained stagnant.

“Ever since the LPG supply crisis began, small restaurants and roadside eateries have been among the worst affected. Larger food chains with multiple outlets across the State were able to manage the situation better owing to their scale and supply networks. However, these major brands were also the first to increase food prices and reduce portion sizes. Smaller eateries have followed suit only in the past two weeks,” said a food consultant.

In Triplicane, a Chennai neighbourhood with a large number of men’s mansions housing job seekers and migrant workers, residents say their daily food expenses have increased by ₹50 to ₹125 in recent weeks. Many who moved to the city in search of employment say affordable food was one of the reasons they chose to stay in mansions despite their cramped living conditions. “We stay in mansions because it helps us cut down on room rent and manage our expenses better. But eating has now become more expensive than lodging,” said Rajavel, a resident of a mansion in the locality. Men living in mansions across the State face the same crisis.

Young professionals and Gen Z employees working in the IT sector say rising travel and food expenses are beginning to strain their monthly budgets. Archana, a software professional employed at a small IT firm along Chennai’s Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), said recent workplace changes added to her financial burden. “After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement encouraging work-from-home, our company reduced its employee transport services and asked the staff members to arrange commute on their own. Now, I must bear my daily travel expenses too,” she said. According to industry experts, the State has over 10 lakh people working in the IT sector, including many from other States.

Silent surge

A cooking oil industry source said that in the past few days, the prices of cooking oils, including palm and sunflower oils, had gone up by ₹15 a litre. Amid rumours that excise duty on cooking oil imports would be increased, there has been panic buying and hoarding. “Since countries that mainly supply cooking oil to India, including Malaysia and Indonesia, have diverted their excess stocks to make biodiesel, the nation’s supplies too are likely to be hit. They too want to conserve foreign exchange by not buying crude oil. If crude prices go down, the price of palm oil too will go down,” he said. Besides homes, palm oil is mainly used in the hotel industry for cooking and making snacks.

Salem Shevapet Maligai and Shop Varthaga Nala Sangam president S.C. Natarajan said that owing to favourable seasonal rainfall, the prices of most grocery items remained stable, with only a few commodities witnessing an increase of ₹5 to ₹10 a kg. Compared with March this year, the price of ‘toor dal’ has increased from ₹125 to ₹130 a kg, while Bengal gram has risen from ₹85 to ₹90 a kg. The price of roasted gram has also gone up from ₹90 to ₹100 per kg, he added.

Firewood cost rising too

Hotels that shifted from LPG to firewood are now grappling with rising firewood cost too. With demand for ‘seemai karuvelam’ (Prosopis juliflora) increasing sharply, the prices have risen from ₹6,000 to ₹13,000 per tonne, Madurai-based wholesale trader A. Karthikeyan said, adding that his customer base had grown from 50 to 70 since the gas shortage began.

Peanut hulls, another alternative biofuel widely used by sweet shops in the region, have also become costlier following the LPG price hike. Known for generating the intense heat required for continuous boiling of sugar syrup, the fuel is commonly used in sweet-making units. M. Kannagaraj, a sweet shop owner in Madurai, said the price of a 30-kg gunny bag of peanut hulls had risen from ₹240 to ₹280. He feared the price might increase further if LPG rates continued to rise.

Rising prices of essential commodities, LPG, and fuel have been affecting the operations of parotta shops in Tiruchi’s Edamalaipatti Pudur area. Shops that once started preparing parottas from early afternoon have begun staggering cooking schedules to optimise the use of gas cylinders and firewood stoves. Residents say the impact is already visible in food prices. “Not long ago, a parotta cost ₹10. It rose to ₹15 earlier this year and now sells for ₹25. Today, buying six parottas costs more than the gravy that accompanies them,” said a resident of Edamalaipatti Pudur.

Cloud kitchens, which rely heavily on app-based food orders, are also facing mounting pressure amid the rising operational cost and shrinking profit margins. Tiruchi alone has nearly 250 cloud kitchens, and several of them are reportedly on the verge of shutting down, according to S. Sundaresan, district secretary of the Tiruchi Hotel Association. “Subscription-based meal services have been among the worst hit by the price rise because we cannot increase rates after customers have already paid their monthly fee. At best, we may have to reduce the number of deliveries or impose a surcharge on future subscriptions,” said S. Siva of Mukkani Tiruchi, a fresh-cut fruits and salads subscription service. Several women, particularly those running cloud kitchens and subscription-based food services across the State, fear that the continuing rise in the fuel and raw material costs could severely affect their already modest monthly savings and threaten the sustainability of their businesses.

Delivery workers in trouble

Food and e-commerce delivery workers say the steady rise in fuel prices is pushing them deeper into financial stress, even as their earnings remain stagnant. Many complain that while the cost of petrol continues to rise, companies have done little to offset the burden on gig workers. “There are far more delivery workers now than there were two years ago, but the number of bookings we receive has reduced sharply. Our incomes have remained the same while fuel expenses keep increasing,” said a delivery executive, expressing concern over the growing struggle to sustain daily expenses.

Many consumers say the new government must urgently intervene to regulate soaring food prices, accusing sections of the hotel industry of increasing rates at the slightest excuse while rarely reducing them when commodity prices fall. “Hotel associations are always quick to cite rising costs and hike prices, but when market prices come down, customers never see any reduction on their bills. The common man is being squeezed from all sides. Someone must step in and control these arbitrary price hikes,” they said.

Supplies stretched

An expert on LPG said that only 60%-70% of the requirement was at present bottled at the plants owing to the reduction in supplies. “There were times when bottling plants worked to fill up 120% of bookings and distributors still had backlogs. At present, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) seem to be stretching whatever supplies of LPG they have. In urban areas, though booking is allowed after 25 days as opposed to 45 days in rural areas, it takes nearly 40 days for the cylinder to reach the customer. It is the same with rural consumers.”

Distributors say they get only one load of bottles where two are needed. OMCs have been saying they have enough stock and there is no need to panic, but they are not permitting new 14.2-kg domestic connections because diversions happen rampantly. “This is mostly done by the delivery boys with the connivance of a few distributors,” said an oil industry source.

(With inputs from Sabari M. in Salem and Namakkal; Nahla Nainar and Ancy Donal Madonna in Tiruchi; P.V. Srividya in Krishnagiri and Hosur; S.P. Saravanan in Erode; Beulah Rose in Madurai; and Deepa Ramakrishnan in Chennai.)

A tapper collecting latex from a rubber tree at a plantation in Kanjirappally, Kottayam.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

As a young boy growing up in the small town of Chitradurga in central Karnataka, Apoorva BV often spent time observing the natural world. “Animals, birds and insects have always been my favourite topics since childhood,” says the Bengaluru-based beekeeper and beekeeping educator, who has recently set up a one-of-its-kind Bee Museum at the Keladi Shivappa Nayaka Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences in Iruvakki, Shivamogga.

Like most of his peers, he went on to join an engineering college, but by his third year, he found himself drawn into the world of bees after attending a beekeeping session organised by senior beekeeper, S M Shanthaveeraiah of Chandana Madhuvana Gramina Abhivruddhi Sangha, a non-government organisation (NGO) focused on rural development.

It first started as a hobby, explains Apoorva, who began by keeping these insects in his bedroom, close to the windows, where he could observe them, “especially the first flight of the day, which happened at a particular time every day.”

He also began offering help to farmers who attended the beekeeping programmes run by Shanthaveeraiah’s NGO, even volunteering as an assistant trainer. “I then started to explore how I can make this a profession. After graduation, I started to travel across the country to meet beekeepers, staying with apiary workers to learn apiary management,” recalls the founder of The Hive trust, a Bengaluru-headquartered non-profit organisation focused on bee-education and conservation.

It is all this knowledge, painstakingly gathered through the years, that has been funnelled into the new bee museum, which Apoorva hopes will help, “even a person who knows nothing about bees, find them interesting.”

Listing some aspects of bees that are detailed in the museum, Apoorva says, “If you walk around, you will see what honey bees are, the hierarchy in the colony, the equipment used in beekeeping, the difference between solitary and social bees and bee habitats.”

The museum also offers insights into the indispensable role that small pollinators, including bees, wasps, rodents, and birds, play in ecosystem-functioning, as well as some of the challenges they face. “Pesticides, loss of habitat and change in agricultural practices affect all these pollinators, not just bees.”

This is the first time he has worked on a project like this, says this impassioned educator, who has been regularly conducting beekeeping workshops across the State and participating in events such as Krishi Mela, Lalbagh Flower Show, farmers’ markets, and agricultural expositions.

The university, he says, approached him to create this museum, which is not just for university students but also for farmers who visit the university regularly. “Generally, these kinds of things go to professional designers, but, as a beekeeper who always enjoyed educating others on beekeeping, this was a good opportunity for me,” says Apoorva.

According to him, Shivamogga and its surroundings have significant potential to increase their beekeeping capacity. “There are so many beekeepers in Sagar, Thirthahalli, Agumbe and Mandagadde,” he says, adding that he is collaborating with a professor at the university, Jayalaxmi Hegde, on the project.

“She had taken the responsibility of implementing the Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) scheme and had already conducted beekeeping training programmes for farmers, as well as distributed beekeeping equipment and accessories, along with bees,” says Apoorva. After she had done this, some funds remained, so they decided to channel them into a museum on campus. “And I started working on it.”

The actual process of creating the museum had more than its fair share of challenges, recounts Apoorva. “It took a long time because of the distance: I am in Bengaluru, and Shivamogga is pretty far (around 300 kilometres from Bengaluru); from Shivamogga, we have to go another 50 kilometres to reach this place,” he says.

He also had to deal with seepage, crumbling walls and workers quitting abruptly, unpleasant surprises that had not been budgeted for. “There were nights when I wondered if I should just pack up. But something kept me going. Maybe it was the museum’s purpose. Maybe it was my own,” reminiscences Apoorva, who got the contract last June and took a little under a year to create the museum, which opened to the public in March this year.

While educating people about beekeeping is an important mandate of the museum, the goals go beyond this. “It is not just about making honey, but also about appreciating and treating bees better,” he says. Bees, after all, are not machines or robots but sentient beings well connected to nature, says Apoorva, who believes that treating domesticated bees well is important. “They are highly evolved, probably more evolved than us, so we really need to appreciate them.”

Although India is still at a nascent stage, as far as commercial beekeeping is concerned, since “it was only after independence that the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) started to promote it for rural employment”, he feels that beekeeping is an ideal livelihood for farmers and tribals of the Western Ghats. Moreover, “honey from the Western Ghats is rich in aroma and flavour. It also has undiscovered medicinal values,” he says, pointing out that, with the increase of tourism in this area, the market value of honey will only go up. “A family in the Western Ghats can earn a minimum of ₹2 lakhs per year if they keep 50 bee colonies.”

Telangana Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Commission Chairman M. Kodanda Reddy expressed disappointment over the Union Budget, stating that the agriculture sector has not been given due priority. He alleged that the Union government was planning to hand over the sector to big corporate companies.

In a statement, Mr. Reddy said the agriculture sector, including the fisheries department, has been allocated ₹1,71,437 crore, which is only 2.51% of the total budget of ₹50,65,345 crore. However, the actual allocation for the agriculture sector is ₹1,27,290 crore, a mere increase of ₹5,000 crore from the previous Budget, he added.

Mr. Reddy pointed out that the Budget lacks new ideas for rural areas and that the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) in Telangana had a proposal to allocate ₹77 crore rejected. The Budget’s allocation for organic farming is also insufficient, with only ₹616 crore allocated, a mere increase of ₹100 crore from the previous Budget, he said.

“Further, there is no proposal to address the shortage of agricultural labourers in villages. The government’s plan to identify 100 backward districts and encourage pulses cultivation has been allocated a meagre ₹1,000 crore. Mr. Reddy also recalled the farmers’ agitation in Haryana and Delhi in 2020, which demanded the legalization of the Minimum Support Price (MSP), a demand that has not been met in the current Budget,” he added.

Union Budget 2025: What’s in it for agriculture?

| Video Credit:
The Hindu

A look at what the Union Budget 2025 had in store for agriculture, and farmers.

Reporting: AM Jigeesh

Video: Sabika Syed

Editing: Tayyab Hussain

Indian economy: what to expect in 2025?

| Video Credit:
The Hindu

At the start of 2024, there was a lot of excitement about the Indian economy – the country was one of the fastest growing economies in the world and there was anticipation that India will become a $4 trillion economy in 2024-25 and become the world’s third-largest economy by 2027. The consensus was that the Indian economy was expected to grow at an impressive 7%.

However, the latest data from the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed the real GDP growth was at 5.4% in the second quarter of this financial year, the lowest in seven quarters. The Gross Value Added growth slowed to 5.8%.

This growth is underwhelming, given that Reserve Bank of India recently projected that the GDP would grow by 7%. In its meet in December, the MPC has now downgraded the growth forecast for 2024-25 to 6.6% from 7.2%.

Is the Indian economy slowing down or is the 5.4% growth pace just “a one-off number”, as Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran put it? We spoke to Rajani Sinha Chief Economist at CareEdge to find out what’s in store for 2025.

Video: Thamodharan B.

Renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr Jane Goodall has sounded the alarm on the biodiversity crisis, warning that Earth is in the midst of the “sixth great extinction.” Unlike previous mass extinctions caused by natural phenomena, this crisis is almost entirely human-induced. In an exclusive interview with BBC, Dr Goodall emphasized the human role in this crisis and the urgent need for action. The conservationist noted that the crisis, driven largely by human activities like deforestation, threatens the survival of countless species and the delicate balance of ecosystems worldwide.

“We’re in the midst of the sixth great extinction. The more we can do to restore nature and protect existing forests, the better. Trees have to grow to a certain size before they can really do their work. But all this [tree-planting] is helping to absorb carbon dioxide,” Dr Goodall told Victoria Gill during an interview for BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science. 

Dr Goodall stressed the importance of taking immediate action to mitigate global warming. She emphasised that there is still a narrow window of opportunity to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, but it is rapidly closing. 

“If we don’t get together and impose tough regulations on what people can do to the environment – if we don’t rapidly move away from fossil fuel, if we don’t put a stop to industrial farming, that’s destroying the environment and killing the soil, having a devastating effect on biodiversity – the future ultimately is doomed,” she noted.

Even at 90 years old, Dr. Jane Goodall shows no signs of slowing down in her relentless efforts for conservation and environmental advocacy. She firmly believes that if people care about their children’s future, they must demand stronger environmental legislation. “Surely people want a future for their children. If they do, we have to get tougher about [environmental] legislation. We don’t have much time left to start helping the environment. We’ve done so much to destroy it,” she said. 

What is the sixth mass extinction?

As per WWF, a mass extinction event is characterised by a significant loss of biodiversity over a relatively short geological period, resulting in the disappearance of a substantial percentage of distinct species across various taxonomic groups, including bacteria, fungi, plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates.

Throughout Earth’s history, five mass extinctions have occurred, with the most recent one taking place 65.5 million years ago, famously wiping out the dinosaurs from existence. Now, experts warn that we are experiencing a sixth mass extinction event, that is mainly driven by human activities. 

Unsustainable land, water, and energy use, along with climate change, are key factors. Currently, 40% of the Earth’s land has been converted for food production, with severe environmental consequences. Agriculture is the primary driver of global deforestation, responsible for 90% of forest clearance. Further, the sector’s immense water requirements account for 70% of the planet’s freshwater usage. These practices have catastrophic effects on ecosystems, causing widespread habitat destruction and displacement of countless species.

Scientists estimate that around one million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades unless urgent action is taken. Conservationists are calling for stronger global policies, increased funding for preservation, and individual action to reduce human impact on the planet.

Watch: Budget 2024: What’s in it for agriculture?

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she has allocated about ₹ 1.50 lakh crore to the agriculture sector.

Almost all major schemes for farmers have seen an increase in allocation compared to her previous budgets. However, the fertilisers subsidy is down by about ₹1 lakh crore when compared to the actual expenditure in 2022-23. To address the price rise, the Finance Ministry has also provided ₹ 10,000 crore to the price stabilisation fund. Farmers are supposed to get a benefit of this fund. In the last budget, the allocation for this fund was just ₹ 10 lakh.

The fertilisers ministry will get about ₹1.64 lakh crore in this financial year. In 2022-23, the Ministry spent about ₹2.51 lakh crore to ensure fertilisers for farmers. It has to be seen how farmers’ organisations such as the Samyukt Kisan Morcha will look into these suggestions especially when their demand for a statutory minimum support price did not find place in the this budget too.