-Livemint.com Increasing mechanization and stagnant wages might be behind youth unrest in poll-bound Gujarat As Gujarat prepares for assembly polls scheduled at the end of this year, the big question is whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be able to retain the support which Narendra Modi’s leadership guaranteed. The Hardik Patel-led Patidar agitation and Jignesh Mevani-led Dalit protests point towards rising discontent among a section of the youth in the...

-The Hindu How Tiruppur, India’s knitwear hub, is now weaving a green cover for the entire district We moved this tree 15 km on a truck along the stretch between Avinashi and Avinashipalayam.” V. Mahendran points to a hulking tree trunk. “The operation took us nine hours. Even with its branches and most of its canopy chopped off, it weighed more than 40 tonnes.” We are at the Tiruppur Collectorate, and Mahendran,...

-The Hindu The core issues are affordable access to medicines and their rational prescription and use The Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a circular on April 21 drawing Attention to clause 1.5 of its regulations regarding the professional conduct of doctors: “Every physician should prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a rational prescription of drugs.” Further, the circular said,...

-Hindustan Times We live in a social regime where women are seen as an embodiment of men’s izzat (honour). Attacking ‘their women’ then becomes the undoing of the whole community. Bilkis Bano. The name and the face have been haunting me since the judgment was announced on her case by the Bombay High Court on May 4. In March 2002, our group of six women arrived in Ahmedabad to document what had...

-Frontline Cattle traders see a nexus between cow vigilantes and animal rights organisations in Delhi, where vigilantes unleashed violence in April. In the past year, 40,000 animals seized by them were not returned to the owners, and traders believe that they were sold. A PLANNED and brutal assault on cattle traders in Kalkaji in Delhi on April 22 by a mob of gau rakshaks (cow protectors) has brought to the fore...