-CounterCurrents.org/ ForestRightsAct.com Sunday night, many of us lost a teacher and comrade, and India lost an extraordinary person. Dr. BD Sharma was an IAS officer who began his administrative career as the Collector of Bastar and retired as the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; and then went on, for another 25 years, to be a mass leader of the Bharat Jan Andolan and an influence on countless other platforms...

Varanasi, which is known as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency during 2014, has hit the headlines recently due to people's struggle for water rights. Altogether 18 village councils (Gram Panchayats) of Varanasi have written recently to Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board to stop overexploitation of groundwater by the Coca-Cola bottling plant, which is situated in Mehdiganj (please click here to access their letters).   The village councils, which have...

-Livemint.com A key condition for the success of road rationing is that alternatives are easily available A big debate on urban transport policy has been triggered by the decision of the state government of Delhi to restrict automobile usage according to the licence plate number. The plan is to significantly reduce vehicular traffic by allowing odd and even numbers to ply the roads on alternate days. Given the city’s atrocious air...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Rock-star French economist Thomas Piketty said it was "very moving" for him to be in Mumbai "after what happened in Paris in the last few weeks". In a wide-ranging conversation moderated by writer Patrick French, Piketty, author of the acclaimed Capital, an exposition on global inequality, and renowned Harvard professor Michael Sandel, whom French introduced as "the public philosopher of the BBC", talked about everything from growing...

-Livemint.com A large number of central schemes end up curbing the autonomy of states In some ways, the thunder of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s first full-year budget was stolen by the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) report. Released just a few days before the budget speech was made, the FFC brought in significant changes in state-centre finances by increasing the devolution to states from 32% to 42% of the net Union tax...