-Down to Earth The largest losses, mostly in forests, occurred in the Sundaland, Indo-Burma and Mesoamerica hotspots, all in developing countries Top biodiversity hotspots of the world lost 148 million hectares (mha) of land to agriculture and urbanisation between 1992 and 2015, a global analysis released October 30, 2020, by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said. Most of the land lost — nearly 40 per cent, or 54 mha — was...

-The Indian Express The Government is also learnt to have finalized the name of Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General Saroj Punhani for the post of Information Commissioner. New Delhi: The Government is set to appoint former Indian Foreign Service officer and Information Commissioner Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha as the new Chief Information Commissioner and journalist Uday Mahurkar as an Information Commissioner despite strong objections from Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Opposition member in the...

-ThePrint.in Migrants from Hussaina village in Bihar’s Begusarai district admit they have faced hardships getting back home during the lockdown but will still vote for the PM. Begusarai: At the peak of the national lockdown in May, Kaushal Kumar and Ranjit Kumar were among 14 people, which included their families, who made the arduous trek from Gurgaon in Haryana to their native village of Hussaina in Bihar’s Begusarai district. The 14 braved the...

-TheWire.in Despite a welcome increase in budgetary allocation, it's less clear if the programme was able to truly serve the massive rural demand that was sparked by the lockdown. The finance ministry announced an additional allocation of Rs 40,000 crore in May 2020 to boost India’s rural job programme. It was announced that the supplementary allocation will be over and above the Rs 61,500 crore that was the budgeted estimate for the...

-The Indian Express ASER report flags burden of digital inequality on children, and opportunity for government schools. The digital pivot in India’s schooling system risks pushing it into deeper inequality, seven months after schools shut down across the country to tackle the pandemic. A majority of children without access to internet has been thrown into distress — a handful to the point of self-harm, as several reports in this newspaper attest —...