GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

INDIA’S general election will take place before May. The front-runner to be the next prime minister is Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently chief  minister of Gujarat. A former tea-seller, he has previously attacked leaders of the ruling Congress party as elitist, corrupt and out of touch. Now he is emphasising his humble caste origins. In a speech in January he said ‘high caste’ Congress leaders were scared of taking on a rival from ‘a backward caste’. If Mr Modi does win, he would be the first prime minister drawn from the ‘other backward classes’, or OBC, group. He is not the only politician to see electoral advantage in bringing up the subject: caste still matters enormously to most Indians.”

Source: www.economist.com

This article from the Economist is dated since Mr. Modi is now the prime minister of India, but this analysis of how caste was used as a political asset in the election is a timely reminder that while the caste system has been officially abolished, the cultural ripples are still being felt today in a myriad of ways that impact social interactions (marriage, jobs, etc.). 

Tags: folk cultures, culture, development, India, socioeconomic, economic, poverty, gender.

Editor’s note: This story is one in a series on a crisis in America’s Breadbasket –the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer and its effects on a region that hel…

Source: www.nbcnews.com

This isn’t new, but it is a new development that the media is covering the issue that has been going on for decades.  The Ogallala aquifer is the primary water source in an agricultural region  from Texas to Nebraska in dry, but agriculturally productive states.  The reason behind their agricultural success in the dry high plains is that more water is being extracted from the aquifer than is naturally being replenished.  This is the obvious result of a human-environmental interaction where the individual actors are incentivized to deplete a communal resource.      

Tags: agriculture, agribusiness, water, environment, resources. 

Artists, designers, photographers and activists share one image that encapsulates what inequality means to them.

See on ideas.ted.com

This daily dose of satellite photos helps you appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things humans have constructed–as well as the devastating…

See on www.fastcoexist.com

“The edge of the 4,000 square foot residence on Overlook Court was dangling about 75 feet above the rocky shoreline of Lake Whitney after part it it had already broken off.”

See on www.khou.com

With Tuesday’s seizure of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria notched a major victory in its campaign to create a new country containing parts of what had part of both Syria and Iraq. On Wednesday, the insurgents continued their march south, taking control of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

The story of ISIS’s spread — and its influence — is one that begins in Syria, where the group has been waging a brutal insurgency against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and, increasingly, other more moderate and secular rebel groups. The map above depicts the areas of Syria under its control. The group’s influence is bounded by the Free Syrian Army in the west, the Kurds in the north, and pockets of government influence.

Tags: Syria, Iraq, MiddleEast, conflict, political, geopolitics.

See on blog.foreignpolicy.com

Today’s volume of immigrants, in some ways, is a return to America’s past.

See on www.pewresearch.org