Archive for the ‘Economics’ Category
No cold storage facility; potato farmers in a fix
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Potato farmers across many districts don’t get a decent price because they cannot store their produce. The harvest last year was two million tons and cold storages could accommodate only one-half of the produce. Read the rest of this entry »
Need to kill 10,000 sq km of forests and rich lands
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The six sectors occupied in 2009 about 0.7 million hectares [or 7000 sq km]. This included land leased out to mine coal, bauxite, limestone, and iron ore.
But this might be a gross underestimation because in the past, industry has acquired far more than what is required for power production facilities. Golf courses are not uncommon in industry premises and golf turf consumes 30 liters per square foot of grass. Read the rest of this entry »
India will draw coal four times more than now
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Demand from the key six big sectors will grow fourfold to two billion tons by 2030. Home production of coal by that time will be about 1.5 billion tons. Demand at two billion.
Business as usual will have India import about 500 million tons of coal to meet requirements of just the six sectors. Even in low carbon coal need will be about 1.5 billion tons in 2030, thrice the current level of production.
India mines more iron ore than it needs
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India currently mines more iron ore than domestic industry requires to produce iron and steel. About 220 million tons got mined last year; only 75 million tons was needed within India. The rest 60 per cent was exported. Read the rest of this entry »
Ivory prices hit the sky, push poaching up
In just the last eight years the price of illegal ivory has increased 15 fold from US $100 a kg to $1500 a kg.
In 1999 Japan was the only legal buyer of ivory. In 2008 it was joined by China. The three biggest illegal ivory markets are in China, Japan, and Thailand. Read the rest of this entry »
