-The Indian Express BJP is attempting to use citizenship issue to woo Namasudra community in Bengal. It is generally believed that unlike other states of India, caste and religion don’t play a significant role in West Bengal’s electoral politics. Academic literature often articulates this as West Bengal’s “exceptionalism”. As a result of the electoral decline of the Left Front and some limited attempts by the Trinamool Congress at community-based mobilisation, the...

-TheWire.in Nearly two months after the Kumbh Mela ended, tannery owners are still waiting for the go ahead to reopen. Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh): In Kanpur’s Jajmau cluster, 225 tanneries are still closed, even though the Maha Kumbh Mela ended on March 4. While the discharge created by the tanneries is being cited as the official reason, tannery owners say the state’s urban development and environment ministries, as well as the chief minister’s...

-The Telegraph Some clauses of the draft of the Indian Forest Act 2019 are extraordinarily undemocratic Forests are considered planetary resources of great importance: as carbon sinks, as repositories for biodiversity, as effective tools for local climate Control, and as a source of timber and related produce. Forests have been dwelling places for people, too. It is important from the point of view of sustainable development that forests be preserved and biodiversity...

-The Hindu Rayalaseema districts descending into the grip of drought Vijayawada: With about two months to go for the onset of monsoon, the water has hit rock bottom in the reservoirs and the ground water position in the State, particularly the drought-prone Rayalaseema districts is precariously low. While the water level in Srisailam project is dangerously low (813.6 feet against the full reservoir level of 885 feet) having only 36.45 tmcft of water,...

-The Hindu CDSCO sends letter to manufacturers Alerted by the Union Health Ministry’s pharmaceutical watchdog, the National Co-ordination Centre of the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI), on adverse reactions that were being reported from some commonly-used antibiotics, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has now asked manufacturers to ensure that this information be made available to the general public. CDSCO has written to drug manufacturers, to mention in leaflets inserted into drug...