Eco-sensitive zones shrink to make way for mines, real estate

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Editor's note: Manjula R.’s home is incongruous amid a landscape of workers’ sheds, massive machinery and blasted out quarries. This part of Thammanayakanahalli, which abuts the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border and is sandwiched between the ever-increasing concrete sprawl of Bengaluru and the dry tropical forests of Bannerghatta National Park, is a hub of activity. Trucks make a beeline for the quarries and migrant workers flit about with purpose. Manjula, a widow who inherited her father-in-law’s 4.5 acres of land, is the sole local here. She had planted ragi (finger millet), togari (pigeon pea), green peas and avarekalu (broad beans) last year, spending Rs 1.75 lakh. She got back just Rs 50,000. The dust, kicked up by passing trucks and blasting of rocks, had decimated her crop. “This happens every year and I thought it was because I didn’t know how to cultivate in these conditions. But it is becoming obvious that I should just give up. It is impossible to farm here,” she says. It wasn’t always like this, says 72-year-old Shamba Murthy whose farm is a little distance away from Manjula’s. Observing …