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By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with...

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with contested rivers, conflict and disrupted supply chains. For India, this presents not merely a humanitarian challenge but an opportunity to practise a more strategic form of food diplomacy. Clear Warning The Nile basin offers the clearest warning. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia depend heavily on the river, directly or indirectly, for agriculture and livelihoods. Egypt obtains roughly 90-95 percent of its water from the Nile, with most of its withdrawals going to agriculture. Wheat, rice, maize and cotton are therefore inseparable from the country's water security. Sudan is similarly dependent on the Main Nile and its Blue and White Nile tributaries for crops including sorghum, wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Ethiopia, by contrast, relies much more heavily on rain-fed agriculture, but the Blue Nile remains crucial to its plans for agricultural and economic expansion. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has transformed this already delicate equation. The Blue Nile supplies roughly 85 percent of the Nile's runoff, giving Ethiopia substantial geographical leverage upstream. Egypt and Sudan, downstream and more dependent on the river, have consequently viewed the dam through the prism of food and water security. The dispute has its roots partly in the 1959 agreement that allocated Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan, but the rise of Ethiopia as a major upstream power has altered the political balance. The stakes are enormous. A disruption to water availability is not simply an environmental problem when millions depend on irrigated agriculture. It can affect food prices, livelihoods, migration and political stability. Across the basin, the consequences potentially extend to hundreds of millions of people. The lesson is straightforward: rivers can become geopolitical infrastructure, and crops can become strategic assets. Critical Role This is where India can play a useful role. Its longstanding diplomatic, commercial and maritime links with Africa give it an established platform. Its experience in producing wheat, rice and millets, meanwhile, gives it something more tangible: the ability to contribute to food-supply resilience. Egypt, for instance, remains heavily dependent on imports and is projected to require around 13 million tonnes of wheat imports to bridge its consumption gap. Sudan’s agricultural crisis is still more acute. Conflict and climate stress have sharply reduced cereal production, leaving output well below recent historical averages. India could therefore build food diplomacy around two complementary tracks. The first is supply. Predictable grain arrangements and strategic food buffers could help vulnerable countries absorb shocks in international markets. The second is technology. India's experience with micro-irrigation, precision farming and water-use efficiency offers tools that may help African farmers produce more with less water. The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana is one example. Drip irrigation, improved canal management, seepage reduction and precision agriculture cannot resolve a dispute over the Nile, but they can reduce the amount of water required to produce a given crop. For this to become a durable strategy, however, India will need to move beyond individual projects. Bilateral agricultural agreements with African countries could be converted into longer-term trade corridors and grain-supply arrangements. Multilateral platforms, including BRICS, could provide mechanisms for greater transparency in food distribution and market stabilisation. Seed exchanges could focus on drought-tolerant millets, biofortified wheat and heat-resistant maize suited to increasingly volatile climates. Indian private enterprise could be brought into this architecture. Agritech startups and Farmer-Producer Organisations could be encouraged to enter African markets through export-linked grants, incubation programmes and risk-sharing mechanisms. EXIM Bank credit lines and export guarantees could reduce the financial risks of deploying solar cold chains, irrigation systems and agricultural technologies in politically volatile markets. Public-private partnerships could also help Indian firms adapt AI-based crop advisory systems and IoT-enabled water sensors to African soils and farming practices. The larger opportunity is strategic. India’s relationship with Africa need not be confined to trade, infrastructure or diplomatic declarations. Agriculture offers a practical form of South-South cooperation in which food, technology and water efficiency reinforce one another. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.

High traffic volumes, strong punctuality

Writer: Bhalchandra Chorghade
Bhalchandra Chorghade
May 6
3 min read

Airport handles 148 ATMs; 20,500 passengers daily

Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) has swiftly established itself as a high-capacity aviation hub, with airport officials highlighting sustained growth in passenger traffic alongside stable operational performance since its launch on December 25, 2025. The latest data indicates that the airport is currently handling more than 148 air traffic movements (ATMs), translating into approximately 20,500 passengers passing through the facility each day. Of this, around 10,500 passengers are departures, reflecting robust outbound demand while maintaining a near-balanced arrival flow.


Officials pointed out that on May 6, 2026, the airport handled 27 arrivals and 45 departures, a distribution that reflects evolving airline scheduling strategies and slot optimization. The higher number of departures on the day also suggests that airlines are increasingly using NMIA as a base for outbound rotations, particularly during peak travel windows.


A key highlight of NMIA’s performance has been its operational reliability. According to airport officials, on-time arrival performance currently stands at 96.4 per cent, while on-time departures are recorded at 86.7 per cent. These figures are considered strong for an airport still in the early months of operation, especially as it continues to scale up both flight movements and passenger throughput. Officials attributed this consistency to efficient coordination between air traffic control, ground handling agencies and airline operators, as well as the deployment of modern infrastructure designed to handle higher traffic volumes with minimal disruption.


Growth Trajectory

Officials further noted that the airport is on a clear growth trajectory, with projections made in late April 2026 indicating that NMIA could soon handle nearly 50,000 passengers daily. This anticipated jump would represent more than a two-fold increase from current levels and is expected to be driven by a combination of factors, including route expansion by domestic and international carriers, increasing passenger preference for the new facility, and the gradual redistribution of traffic from the congested Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.


The current scale of operations marks a sharp rise from the airport’s initial days. On its inaugural day, NMIA handled over 4,000 passengers and 48 flight movements, setting the stage for a phased but steady ramp-up. In the first five days of operations, between December 25 and December 30, 2025, the airport handled 26,021 passengers across 162 ATMs, reflecting encouraging early adoption by both airlines and passengers.


Officials said that the momentum gathered pace quickly in the following weeks. By early January 2026, within just 19 days of commencing operations, NMIA had already crossed the 100,000 passenger movement mark. This rapid accumulation of traffic was seen as a strong indicator of latent demand in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and the immediate need for additional aviation capacity to supplement existing infrastructure.


Steady Increase

Beyond the raw numbers, officials emphasised that NMIA’s growth story is also about efficient traffic management and scalability. The steady increase in ATMs without a proportionate decline in punctuality suggests that the airport’s operational framework has been able to absorb rising volumes effectively. The high on-time arrival rate indicates streamlined airspace management and efficient landing sequences, while the relatively lower, but still strong, departure punctuality points to ongoing refinements in turnaround times and ground operations.


Officials also underscored that NMIA is gradually emerging as a preferred alternative for both passengers and airlines, owing to its modern facilities, reduced congestion and improved passenger handling capabilities. As airlines continue to expand their presence, the airport is expected to play a larger role in regional and national connectivity, easing pressure on existing infrastructure while supporting the growth of India’s aviation sector.


In cumulative terms, NMIA’s journey from handling just a few thousand passengers on its opening day to over 20,000 daily passengers within a matter of months reflects a steep and well-managed growth curve. Airport officials maintained that the combination of rising traffic, strong punctuality metrics and ambitious expansion projections positions NMIA as a transformative infrastructure project for the region.


As traffic levels continue to climb toward the projected 50,000 daily passengers, NMIA is not only reinforcing its role as Mumbai’s second airport but also redefining traffic distribution patterns across the metropolitan region. With continued operational fine-tuning and increasing airline participation, officials believe the airport is on track to become one of India’s key aviation hubs in the near future.

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