India is seeing an increase in suicides among daily wage workers, according to the latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau. The report released in August revealed that the share of daily wage workers is the largest among those who die by suicide in India.

Out of 164,033 suicide cases reported in 2021, just over 42,000 suicides, or one in four, were among wage workers.

“Suicide numbers and attempts have risen significantly. The data is reflective of the trend but the numbers are likely to be even more,” Delhi-based psychiatrist Achal Bhagat told DW. “Poverty contributes to mental health problems in multiple ways.” Bhagat, who has studied the issue closely, said many wage workers are uncertain if they will be able to support themselves, and have feelings of feelings of guilt for not living up to the role of being a young man in a patriarchal society. 

Mental health professionals attribute the climb in suicides to factors including joblessness, poverty, debt and inability to cope with cuts in wages.

 “The two most important policies that could make a difference are sustainable livelihoods with social security, and access to mental health and suicide prevention services,” Bhagat said. 

About 450 million of India’s 1.3 billion plus population work in the informal economy. These include wage workers, construction workers, street vendors and landless laborers. Over half of India’s daily wager workers earn just 200-400 rupees a day (€2.5- €5, $2-$5), far below the prescribed minimum wage for unskilled workers. Many workers become indebted and are left vulnerable to exploitation.

The pandemic “led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. Women and younger workers have been disproportionately affected,” a recent study by the Azim Premji University in collaboration with various civil society organizations found. Most daily workers experienced an acute drop in employment, including after November 2020 and in much of early 2021. Sectors such as real estate, construction, infrastructure and urban development took time to restart projects.

“Because of the uncertainty about work and income, they [daily wage workers] had to frequently migrate, have lost safety nets, possess zero savings and are debt-ridden,” Nelson Vinod Moses, founder of the Suicide Prevention India Foundation, explained. “Many have high alcoholism rates, no health insurance, get ill-treated and work in hazardous conditions with injuries,” he added.

Tina Gupta, a psychotherapist who has studied behavioral patterns, cited a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showing that a $1 increase in the minimum wage is linked to a fall in the suicide rate of between 3.5 and 6% among people with high school education or less. 

“This study points out how low wages are linked to high suicide risk among the vulnerable. Daily wage workers are among the poorest,” she said. “There would be a complex pattern of vulnerabilities like financial stress, lack of social and economic stability, and debt,” she added.

Daily wage workers are most often the primary breadwinners of the family, stated Anjali Nagpal, another psychiatrist in New Delhi.

“Because of their limited academic or vocational skills, if they are terminated or face financial difficulties, they’re not in a condition to adapt by changing their trade or ask for help from their friends, as they are in similar position,” she said. “On top of their work and financial woes, they often struggle with their personal life as being aware of one’s mental health issues isn’t a priority in this stratum,” she pointed out.

But without social and economic safety nets or access to mental health care, many daily wage workers continue to feel trapped.

The key to suicide prevention is “health insurance, debt assistance, social security, access to health care and a public health campaign that shows that civil society cares,” stressed Nelson Vinod Moses of the Suicide Prevention India Foundation.

India sees spike in suicides among wage workers | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW | 18.09.2022

 Agricultural water use makes up nearly 80% of total water consumption in the Colorado River basin, with roughly half of that going toward the production of alfalfa hay, according to a 2020 study. One out of every three farmed acres in  California’s Imperial Valley is dedicated to growing alfalfa, which dries into a high-protein hay commonly used as food for livestock. 

The large-scale production of alfalfa during a megadrought is, in a large part, possible because the Imperial Valley is the single biggest controller of rights to Colorado River water. Now, with the basin on the brink of the most severe water cuts in history, the alfalfa industry has been propelled to the center of longstanding debates over sustainable water use and the future of farming in the west.  Farmers have faced growing criticism for what some have characterized as the “perverse” practice of growing a thirsty crop – none of which goes directly to feeding people – in a drought-stricken region.

The Colorado River, which supplies freshwater to more than 40 million people in seven states and 29 federally recognized tribes across the south-west, as well as northern Mexico, is in rapid decline. Reduced snowpack, drought conditions and higher average temperatures have all reduced the river’s flow in recent decades.

The two biggest reservoirs along the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are each close to hitting levels so low that the Colorado River could stop flowing entirely, a condition ominously known as dead pool.

 “We’re teetering on the edge,” said Jack Schmidt, a professor and director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University. “We’re irrigating alfalfa in 120-degree temperatures in the dead of July … how does that possibly make any sense?” Schmidt said.

Alfalfa production in California uses around 5 feet an acre (6167.4 cubic metres) of water, making it one of the most water-intensive crops alongside the likes of almonds, pistachios and rice. Crops such as sugar beets use roughly 3 feet an acre (3,700 cubic metres), and dry beans as little as 1.5 feet each acre (1,850 cubic metres).

Stephen Hawk, a fourth-generation farmer who grows a mix of forage crops and vegetables, decided to scale back production of alfalfa – then his biggest crop. He ramped up production of vegetables like lettuce, onions, carrots and sugar beets. In addition to conserving water, the decision allowed him to diversify revenue streams and practice ground rotation, which comes with soil health benefits. 

“We’re ultimately stewards of the land and our resources,” Hawk said. “And our water is our most precious resource.” He added: “There’s a lot of farms that are 100% forage. That’s going to be very difficult for them to continue. When there’s a shortage, they won’t have enough water to farm all their acres.”

Policymakers have imposed various restrictions aimed at curtailing residential water use, including limiting pool sizes and paying people to rip up their lawns. But others argue that municipal conservation measures can only go so far.

“Even if everybody ripped up their lawns and planted native plants that didn’t need to be irrigated, we’re still going to have this problem. We need to address agriculture straight on,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director of Food & Water Watch, an advocacy group on farming and water issues. “Alfalfa is one of the major crops that is being grown with this water. And it is unfortunately one of the most water-thirsty”.

In 2021, nearly 20% of alfalfa produced in the west was shipped abroad, according to analysis of United States Department of Agriculture data. Nationwide, alfalfa exports reached a record high last year, driven by strong demand from China. Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia are among other top importers.

It’s the thirstiest crop in the US south-west. Will the drought put alfalfa farmers out of business? | Water | The Guardian

 The United Nations’ latest annual ranking of nations by “sustainable development goals” have as its top four countries the Scandinavian nations. 

The United States is forty-first, just below Cuba. Other nations better than the USA include Estonia, Croatia, the Slovak Republic, Romania, and Serbia.

The seventeen “sustainable development goals” (SDGs) include the absence of poverty and hunger, good health and education, gender equality, clean air and water, and reduced inequality. The purpose of the report is to measure countries’ progress, or development, toward a civilized and sustainable future.

 As historian Kathleen Frydl points out, “Under this methodology … the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.” 

 How does a country that was once “developed” become “developing”? The phrase “developing country” implies that there are countries that have achieved development, and countries that are on their way. It leaves no room for the possibility that a nation, once it developed, can “un-develop” itself. It’s like saying that a “growing child” can become “un-grown.” 

And yet, that’s exactly what is happening to the United States.

Albeit, other measurements and reports may not place the US below Cuba or Serbia, but most major measurements seem to point one way: down. Life expectancy is declining. Economic inequality is rising. Other measurements are flat at best.

Opinion | Is Progress Obsolete? The United States Is Now an ‘Un-Developing’ Country | Richard Eskow (commondreams.org)

 More than 452 million children worldwide live with war in about 30 countries or territories, according to NGOs, double the number of affected children than 20 years ago. 

Of that, 27 million cannot go to school and an estimated 250,000 have been forced to fight or otherwise serve fighters, including as sex workers.

Their injuries and deaths are rarely investigated, and crimes against them rarely punished. 

US oil industry’s internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green. A congressional hearing produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP.

The revelations are part of the third hearing held by the House committee on oversight and reform on how the fossil-fuel industry sought to hamper the effort to address the climate crisis.

New documents are “the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers”, said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.

Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are “explosive” and show a “culture of intense disrespect” to climate activists. The oil giants’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,” he added. “Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”

Several emails and memos show executives, staffers and lobbyists internally contradicting public pronouncements by their companies to act on lowering planet-heating emissions.

The documents include an August 2019 memo by an executive to Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, on the need to “remove reference to Paris agreement” from an announcement by an industry lobby group that Exxon is a member of. Such a statement “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris agreement goals”, the executive warned. 

A separate note on a 2018 Exxon presentation also admitted that biofuels derived from algae was still “decades away from the scale we need”, despite the company long promoting it as a way to lower emissions.

Shell documents show a private 2020 communication in which employees are urged to never “imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that (net zero) is a Shell goal or target”. Shell has “no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio” over the next 10 to 20 years, it added. A Shell tweet posted in 2020 asking others what they could do to reduce emissions resulted in a torrent of ridicule from Twitter users. A communications executive for the company wrote privately that criticism that the tweet was “gaslighting” the public was “not totally without merit” and that the tweet was “pretty tone deaf”. He added: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”

The UK-headquartered oil company, which in July announced a record $11.5bn quarterly profit, also poured scorn on climate activists, with a communications specialist at the company emailing in 2019 that he wished “bedbugs” upon the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led US climate group.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they wish bedbugs on you, then you win,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise. The organization accused Shell of a “legacy of violence and of ignoring the wellbeing of communities across the globe”.

Previous releases of internal documents have shown that the oil industry knew of the devastating impact of climate change but chose instead to downplay and even deny these findings publicly in order to maintain their business model.

Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 The EU parliament voted to approve the report on Thursday, which accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban of creating an “electoral autocracy”. Hungarian civil liberties groups have welcomed the report.

“For Hungarian human rights organisations, this is sadly not surprising,” Dr Marta Pardavi explained. “This is obviously something that is very painful for us as Hungarian citizens, but we do see that the report’s conclusion is inevitable.” Dr Parvdavi, who is co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee – a human rights monitoring group – said “very serious violations” of democratic norms have been documented against Mr Orban’s regime. “Over the past four years what has happened in Hungary is a solidifying of undemocratic practices,” she added. “It [the report] emphasises the ongoing and almost permanent nature of this democratic backsliding.”

“Extreme climate change risks are under-explored,” Luke Kemp, a researcher with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, warned. “Climate scholars have strong incentives to err on the side of least drama. You don’t want to be branded an alarmist.” But with fossil fuel emissions still going up and climate-fuelled disasters multiplying, it’s time for an “honest assessment of the risks and what can be done”, he told an audience with a frank assessments of looming threats.

As they grapple with ever-clearer data about how close the planet may be to irreversible tipping points, scientists say they are struggling to deliver clear and realistic warnings about the unthinkable, without undermining hope.

With new evidence that catastrophic climate-change “tipping points” are nearing – from surging sea levels as polar ice melts to spiking temperatures as methane escapes thawing permafrost scientists are quietly planning for the unthinkable.

“It’s scary and it’s real – and these are the futures that are going to be opening up to us if we don’t act strongly now,” warned Laura Pereira of the Global Change Institute at South Africa’s Witwatersrand University.

A study in the journal Science found that four dangerous planetary tipping points are “likely” above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) of warming above preindustrial temperatures – a level that could be passed within a decade.  Tipping points happen when a small change – such as an incremental increase in global temperature – sparks a rapid, often irreversible transformation, scientists say.

Accelerating melting leading to the eventual collapse of the Greenland ice sheet may have already been triggered, setting in motion 7 metres (23 feet) of sea level rise over an indeterminant time, enough to swamp key coastal cities.

David King, former chief scientific advisor for Britain and founder of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, an expert panel, said he thinks “the Arctic circle tipping points are now passed”.

With the Arctic having warmed 3C – well above the global average, which is already about 1.3C, risks are also growing that large amounts of methane trapped in thawing permafrost could be released. Adding much more of that potent greenhouse gas to the atmosphere could drive an unstoppable cycle of higher global temperatures and more melting.

“If all of that is released, we’ll see temperatures rise 5-8C (8-14F) over 20 years,” he said, adding this would be “extraordinarily destructive to the future of humanity”, likely causing food system collapse and displacing billions of people.

An array of new efforts to reduce catastrophic risk – or to deal with the consequences of failing – are starting to appear.

Efforts to pass a fossil fuel “non-proliferation” treaty – designed to end new oil, gas and coal exploration and production – are gathering steam, while the Bezos Earth Fund this week put $1.15 million into efforts to “activate” positive tipping points. “non-proliferation” treaty. Scientists also want a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on catastrophic climate change and tipping points, in part to help raise the profile of the threats.

 According to statistics compiled by CBS, as of 16 September Texas and Arizona had sent almost 300 buses carrying approximately 13,000 migrants to Washington DC, New York and Chicago. Florida has become the third Republican-run state to traffic migrants/asylum seekers to Democratic controlled states or cities. The bulk of these people were sent from Texas.

 India, recently became the fifth-largest global economy, has the Earth’s largest population below the age of 35, with considerable smartphone and social media penetration 

Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S, a data journalist, challenges widely-held beliefs and debunks media coverage far removed from the data. Her account is contrary to the image many Indians have of themselves as a largely tolerant nation, peopled with mostly liberal citizens, who, despite great odds, adversity and backsliding, remain committed to the democratic, secular and pluralistic values of the Indian Constitution. Rukmini found that India is less committed to democratic principles, freedom of speech, free operation of the judiciary and the opposition, than most other countries.

“This is not a liberal country nor do most Indians see liberalism as a virtue,” she writes. “Age, education and levels of urbanisation and income do not produce the moderating, progressive liberal effects on views that we in our popular imagination in India assume they do,” she said

On caste, the data reveals that Indian society continues to be steeped in casteism, where the banned practice of untouchability is still followed, not just in rural India, but in cities as well. 

“…The organisation of Indian society as being extremely hostile to any inter-group mingling or relationship or communication of any sort. The majority of Indians in opinion polls say they are opposed to inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, large numbers of people say they do not have friends of another religion or caste, and a significant share of people, even in urban India, say that someone in their family practices untouchability…We are seeing laws being brought in to discourage inter-religious marriage. We are seeing violence against backwards castes. We are seeing a lot of violence against Muslims…We are seeing all sorts of criminalisation and intimidation around all sorts of mixing between religious groups. Places of worship that were shared between groups are being actively weaponised and polarised…”

“…Young people are saying they do not support inter-caste, inter-religious marriage to a greater degree than views expressed by their grandparents. They are not saying they have greater commitments to free speech or to secular values than older people…”

In 2011-2013, 30 percent of rural households reported practising untouchability while in urban areas the corresponding figure was lower at 20 percent.

While there appears to be more latitude for women choosing their life partners, the data reveals that Indians believe that women should be subservient to their husbands and should not go out for paid work.

“…The overall national picture is bleak in terms of even having the ability to have any say on your marriage, to choose a partner, to be able to take any decision around the household purchase, to have any assets in your own name, to have any cash on hand, to be able to even go the doctor without permission — all of these numbers are pretty bleak, particularly in the north and centre of the country…Overall in the country, we have one of the lowest levels of female labour force participation of any country in the world. This is an indicator that has not risen but has fallen substantially. It is also extremely low for extremely well-educated and rich women…”

Between 1990 and 2014, those who opposed homosexuality fell from 89 percent to 24 percent, from an overwhelming majority to a clear minority. Between 2014 and 2019, the share of Indians who believe homosexuality should be accepted by society more than doubled.

 “…Given that decriminalisation occurred in 2018, I feel it is an avenue to explore whether it made people perhaps feel that if the Supreme Court says that it is not criminal, perhaps I should change my views, or if it allowed people who already had people in same-sex relationships in their lives — children, nephews and cousins—it made them feel that this is something they have already seen and now even the law said it wasn’t criminal…It is certainly worth thinking that if an important constitutional authority comes out with clear and resounding support of a position, can it change societal values significantly?  It makes you think about what could be done if the courts came out strongly in support of interfaith relationships or other democratic principles. This was one of the areas where there was mass media support as well…”

India Far Less Committed to Liberal Values Than Imagined, Data Shows – Consortium News