-Business Standard Move comes despite RSS affiliated organisation opposing such regulations Maharashtra government has finalised regulations that will allow it to wrest back control from tribals over the lucrative forest trade in goods such as bamboo and tendu leaves worth thousands of crores annually. This also involves management of potentially 80% of community forestlands in the state after the Union Tribal Affairs ministry’s volte-face on interpreting the Forest Rights Act. The Forest Rights Act...

-Livemint.com Investments via gender lens increase access to capital for women and girls, improve gender equality, say experts Less than 7% of all philanthropic dollars find their way to programmes designed specifically for girls and women—not a promising figure if gender equality in the world is the ultimate goal. This was the startling finding of a 2014 study by Women Moving Millions, an international not-for-profit agency. To improve gender equality, experts suggest...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Modi government tries hard to signal a makeover but beyond the symbolic it does not change much. Budget 2016 is not important for the proposals that it has made but for what it tries to signal about the proposed makeover, in a limited way, of the Narendra Modi government. The budget does try hard to claim that the Modi government is not a “suit-boot” administration, an image...

-Down to Earth Patents on seeds by corporations leave farmers unable to save or share seeds Agricultural corporations may be impacting the right to food of women by taking legal action against farmers for breaching patent laws, as per a new UN study. “Big companies are suing farmers because they are using patented seeds without the permission. This is a very serious issue and millions of dollars the corporations are taking from...

-Down to Earth Having the highest number of malnourished children in the world, India cannot afford to overlook this fact Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat when he claimed that malnutrition in his state was high because girls had become “beauty-conscious”. In May 2014, he became the Prime Minister of India. Five months into his stint, the National Democratic Alliance government received a survey conducted by UNICEF named the “Rapid...