-Down to Earth People want Direct Benefit Transfer system to be replaced with old practice of getting rice at Re 1/kg at the ration shop Hundreds have protested against the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme started by the government of Jharkhand by marching from the Katahal Mor area of Ranchi towards the Chief Minister’s house via Piska Mor. The protest was organised jointly by civil society organisations and the major opposition parties...

-Down to Earth The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee says that the state government arrested farmer leaders on Tuesday to preempt an upcoming protest   In order to pre-empt a farmers' protest around the legislative assembly February 22, the Rajasthan government cracked down on farmer leaders, according to a statement by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), an association of 194 farmer groups across the country. The state government arrested...

-Down to Earth The protests are in opposition to the vague position of the Rules on forest-dwelling communities in the compensatory afforestation process The draft Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018, notified by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) on February 16, have sparked protests by tribal organisations in Odisha. The protests are due to the fact that the Rules are vague on the role of communities in...

-Down to Earth Going by a recent study on malnutrition in children in 10 Indian cities, parental bias for boys could be pushing them closer to junk food In India, it is generally believed girls are disempowered, that also affects their health. And, there are statistics to show their plight. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) of 2016 shows around 55 per cent women are anaemic while just about half of them,...

-Down to Earth What is the use of strategy when no special budget was allocated to double farmers’ income, says a senior NITI Aayog official anonymously In a two-day closed door meeting on doubling farmers’ income, the government claimed that there is no lack of funds to implement a seven-point strategy devised to double farmers’ income by 2022. The national conference, Agriculture 2022 - Doubling Farmers’ Income, which ends today, hosts sessions...