Anyone familiar with the farmer suicide crisis in India will know the place Warangal. Located in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, Warangal is considered the epicenter of the farmer suicide crisis. It is here that the farmer suicides by the hundreds were first recorded in 1998.

Finally some good news to report: Marks & Spencer, UK based retailer will continue to invest in the ‘Better Cotton’ Initiative for the next three and a half years. Their press release says the investment will extend to 20,000 farmers in Warangal.

M&S will now continue to fund the project for the next three and a half years to extend the project to 20,000 farmers. It is a joint venture between M&S and WWF. Results from last year include:

• 51 per cent less water use;
• 81 per cent less pesticide ‘active ingredient’ use;
• 53 per cent less synthetic fertiliser use.

Why should we care?

India is currently the 2nd largest producer of cotton in the world (China is #1). And, cotton is a water hog – It can take more than 20,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton; equivalent to a single T-shirt and pair of jeans.

What I’m reading this morning:

• India’s national game is Hockey. Yet it is sinking and sinking deeper and deeper into a seemingly bottomless pit of failure and incompetence.

• Vultures may soon be extinct in India because of a banned drug used to treat sick cattle.

• Rest In Peace Gautam Rajadhyaksha, legendary photographer who pioneered the art of celebrity photographer.

• The screening of much anticipated film Mausam at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been cancelled because the Indian Airforce is objecting to a 30 second sequence in the film. Dear incompetent Indian Censor Board – your delays in approval have effectively denied a filmmaker the chance to preview his film to the entire world at one of world’s most acclaimed film festivals.

Back in 2009, Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy, a scientist in Kerala, India brought to the world’s attention a study showing that cell phone towers were responsible for killing off bees. Today Daniel Favre, a Swiss scientist has published another report confirming these findings.

The study – published in the beekeepers’ magazine Apidologie – found that the phone signals confused the bees who began to fly erratically before suddenly dying. (Mail Online)

Since 2006 the alarm bells have been sounded and growing louder and louder:

“One in every three bites of food you eat comes from a plant, or depends on a plant, that was pollinated by an insect, most likely a bee,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp of Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

It has been going on for four years. In 2009 almost 29 percent of the bee colonies in the United States collapsed, say scientists who surveyed commercial beekeepers and brokers. That’s slightly less than the 36 percent loss in 2008 and the 32 percent counted in 2007, but an informal survey just finished suggests that the die-off continues. (ABC News)

What now? Are we going to do something about it, or go as the bees go?

We hope these students run with this idea and make it a reality. The country and the planet is depending on them to change the unsustainable solutions we are currently using.

Like us, they too have aspirations.