-The Indian Express For India, the latest report has blamed an environment of intimidation created by BJP supporters for any critical journalist, who, the report said, is marked as “anti-state” or “anti-national”. While India has not slipped further on the World Press Freedom Index 2021 published by the international journalism not-for profit body, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), however, it continues to be counted among the countries classified “bad” for journalism and is...

-The Hindu Parliamentary panel pushes for it in all government schools in coming academic year The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education has recommended that all government schools start providing free breakfast in the coming academic year, as part of an expansion of the mid-day meal scheme envisaged by the National Education Policy. However, Education Ministry officials say a severe funding crunch is likely to delay the initiative. Free breakfasts would involve an additional...

-Scroll.in The report by Varieties of Democracy Institute said India is as autocratic as Pakistan in censorship and worse than Bangladesh and NEPal. India has turned into an “electoral autocracy”, an analytical research project by Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute said. The research institute had said last year that the Bharatiya Janata Party now closely resembles a “typical governing party in an autocracy”. A report of the organisation, which conceptualises and measures democracy,...

-The Indian Express The NEP’s assault on playgrounds deprives children, particularly those belonging to lower castes and the urban poor, of their right to play in safe and adequate spaces. Children, especially in urban areas, are disenfranchised from equitable spatial resources, despite being equal members of society. The access to playgrounds, the only lands allotted for children’s needs, depends on class and caste privileges. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory...

-TheWire.in The closure of a sugar mill has left farmers in Sitamarhi and Sheohar with no other option. Sitamarhi (Bihar): Farmer Gunanand Chaudhary of Hirolwa, Majorganj block in Bihar’s Sitamarhi had cultivated sugarcane on a 25-acre field. When the district’s only sugar mill, Riga Sugar Mill, announced that it won’t be opening this year, it came as a shock. Thankfully, NEPal is just four km from his village. Chaudhary has so far sold...