-Hindustan Times The law provides for giving land rights to those living on forest land for at least three generations before December 31, 2005. The Supreme Court has asked the governments of 17 states to evict an estimated one million tribal and other households living in forests after their claims of the right to live in forests were rejected under the Forest Rights Act. The court has asked the evictions to be...

-Hindustan Times Previous attempts to study 18th and 19th century droughts have been limited to meteorological droughts caused by failure of rains A study that reconstructed droughts and famines across India over the last 146 years says lack of moisture in the soil for extended periods of time can be linked to some of the most devastating famines. Previous attempts to study 18th and 19th century droughts have been limited to meteorological droughts...

-Hindustan Times Election Commission’s faulty audit plan has led to an avoidable controversy. We recommend a few steps. The bizarre claim made in London recently about the alleged hacking of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in previous elections has done more harm than good by diverting public attention from genuine concerns about EVMs and the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) lack of transparency in the matter. The controversy over the security of EVMs dates...

-Hindustan Times With little transparency on how such deaths are investigated, and new rules relaxing how clinical trials are conducted in India, this data could be a poor estimate, said experts. Mumbai: At least 1,100 people who took part in clinical trials over the past four years have died, and 88 of these deaths were caused by direct side effects of the trials, the health ministry told the Rajya Sabha last week. But,...

-Hindustan Times Fiscal prudence has been compromised in favour of pleasing every conceivable vote bank the NDA can appeal to What a difference five years make. In July 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) unveiled its first full budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley made clear that the NDA was against “mindless populism”. “India,” he said in a media interaction, “has to make a choice between mindless populism and fiscal prudence…. the...