-IndiaWaterPortal.org In this interview, Joy talks about his work as an activist working in rural Maharashtra, and how he came to work on water conflicts in India. To many in the water sector, K. J. Joy needs no introduction. An activist at heart, Joy is known for his untiring Rights based work in mobilising communities in rural Maharashtra, and for his research work on water and water related conflicts including inter-state...

-TheWire.in Given the increased policy and intervention focus on producer companies, it becomes imperative to understand exactly how many there are. On July 5, 2019, the Centre announced a plan to promote 10,000 new farmer producer companies over the next five years. India already has many such companies, which have been registered since they were introduced in 2002 through an amendment to the Companies Act. While registered under that Act, they have several...

-The Indian Express What is needed is ‘ease of policing’, better training and infrastructure Common Cause’s recent survey on the Status of Policing in India is said to have affirmed that the black sheep in the police force find nothing wrong with beating up criminals to extract a confession. It is still, however, too judgemental to suggest that torture is endemic to Indian policing, as Maja Daruwala does (‘Exorcising third-degree’, IE,...

-TheWire.in The RTI Convention begs the question: who will save the RTI? Ideally, the 14th convention on the RTI, on October 12, where Central and state commissioners were present, should have resolved against the amendment which reduces their collective independence. However, I am surprised that even non-bureaucrat commissioners also did not raise their voice against it. The least a convention of commissioners could have done was to ask for information on the...

-The Telegraph Dalits account for over a third of the homeless New Delhi: Three in five homeless people surveyed across 15 Indian cities have said they were born in the city they now live in, a situation implying families trapped in destitution down the generations. A strong caste link too has emerged, with Dalits accounting for over a third of the homeless, double their share of India’s population. The European Union-funded study by the...