New Delhi: Veteran journalist P Sainath has made a strong demand for declaring agriculture a public service. He also believes there needs to be a special session of Parliament to discuss the farmer crisis and the decade-old report of National Commission of Farmers chaired by professor M S Swaminathan.
The author of Everybody Loves A Good Drought delivered the inaugural lecture of a monthly lecture series planned by Delhi assembly. Sainath warned that the country was facing a serious water and farm crisis and the monsoon could only bring relief, not a solution, to drought-hit areas. He also said that the time has come to decide if water is a human right or just a commodity.
"The increasing water crisis is not simply related to monsoon. Even if you get a good monsoon for three consecutive years, the water crisis will continue. A Drought cannot be attributed to a change of water use pattern and climatic failure; it is also about how we use water and plan development. People think drought is a meteorological failure that would end if monsoon comes. The water crisis in India is also a hydrological drought, a serious groundwater crisis," Sainath said.
Sainath also pointed out that India’s spending on health and education has been declining, aggravating the problem of farmer suicides.
Please click here to read more.