-Press release by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) dated 6 October, 2019 Farmers’ movements are inviting all citizens, social organisations and people’s movements of India to hold protests all over the country on the 24th of October 2019, against the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Free Trade Agreement. The Indian government is negotiating RCEP with 15 other countries including ASEAN countries along with large industrial economies like China, Japan, South...

-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...

-The Hindu A full Bench directs the Labour Secretary to file a comprehensive report on the issue by October 28 BHUBANESWAR: A full Bench of the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) on Monday took suo motu cognizance of distress labour migration from the State and directed the Labour Secretary to file a comprehensive report on the issue by October 28. The full Bench of the OHRC, comprising chairperson Justice Bimala Prasad Das and...

-The Indian Express Defence is a national public good. It is the primary responsibility of the Centre. The amendment to the terms of reference (TOR) issued to the Fifteenth Finance Commission asking it to examine “..a separate mechanism for funding of defence and internal security ought to be set up and if so, how such a mechanism could be operationalised,” has triggered some suggestions on the need to have a relook...

-The Hindu SC says plea filed by child Rights activists Enakshi Ganguly and Shanta Sinha raise “substantial issues and alleged detention of children”. The Supreme Court on Friday assigned the Jammu and Kashmir High Court’s Juvenile Justice Committee to inquire into allegations of illegal detention of children — some as young as 10 — by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, which is undergoing a period of lockdown following the reading down...