-Hindustan Times Increasing rates of girls’ education, proactive government investments in adolescent girls, and strong public messaging around the illegality of child marriage and the harm it causes attributed to the shift. From one in four to approximately one in five, child marriages have seen a decline world over in the past 10 years, a Unicef report released on Monday said. The proportion of women who were married as children decreased by 15%...

-Hindustan Times A newer generation of politicians has again voiced the demand of giving land to landless Dalit households as a means to resolve the crisis of rural livelihoods. But the relentless pursuit of neo-liberal economic policies and liberalisation has rendered most of these demands Utopian Seven decades after Independence, while a majority of farmers cultivate their own land (however small their holdings may be), most Dalit farmers in much of India...

  Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) or cash transfer might appear attractive on papers, but in reality it is opposed by its beneficiaries when implemented. Something similar to this has happened in the Nagri block of Ranchi district, where cash is being transferred to the aadhaar seeded bank accounts of beneficiaries in lieu of providing subsidized foodgrains. Cash transfers in the public distribution system (PDS) have been in operation in the Nagri block...

-Hindustan Times Increased usage of domestic coal during winter accounts for 84 per cent of harmful emissions, says study Pollution in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, hit a dangerous level during winter when tiny particulate matter was recorded five times more than the permissible limit mainly due to the use of coal for domestic purpose, a new study has said. The study by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune...

-Hindustan Times Prioritise universal access of food grains since those dying of starvation are mainly the marginalised Forty-four-year-old mother, Amir Jahan, epitomised gallantry this Republic Day. There was not a morsel of food at home. So, while the nation celebrated, she quietly borrowed six rotis from a neighbour and distributed them equally among her three daughters, though she hadn’t eaten for four days. That night Amir died of starvation. In the first month...