-The Hindustan Times In a significant order on Tuesday, the Delhi High Court unblocked Rs 1.87 crore received by NGO Greenpeace from its Amsterdam headquarters. The NGO had filed a case after the ministry of home affairs in June last year directed the Reserve Bank of India to take prior permission of the ministry before clearing any foreign aid to the NGO from Greenpeace International and Climate Works. Saying that there is...
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805 million people go hungry. Who will uphold their right to food? -Biraj Patnaik
-The Guardian Countries are recognising their obligation to feed their citizens, but with growing corporate control over food systems, the battle is far from over As the first round of intergovernmental negotiations on the sustainable development goals gets under way in New York, I am reminded of the immense struggle over time to ensure that every human being has quality food in sufficient quantity to meet their needs - a right laid...
More »Farmers’ Suicides and Fatal Politics -Vasanthi Srinivasan
-Kafila.org With depressing regularity, the newspapers have been reporting farmers' suicides in many states. Recently, P Sainath wrote on BBC that around 296,438 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. He also mentions that cash crop cultivators of cotton, sugar cane, vanilla, pepper, groundnut etc account for the bulk of those suicides. According to a PIL heard by the Supreme Court in December 2014, around 3146 farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicide...
More »State power sans public reason -Yogendra Yadav
-The Hindu The government's reasoning that the land ordinance was meant to extend the benefit of the new law to various types of land acquisitions left uncovered so far is disingenuous Democracy is an exercise in public reason. Democratically elected governments cannot simply throw around the weight of their majority. They have a responsibility to offer good reasons for their decisions. And they must do so publicly. That is why we follow...
More »When amendment amounts to nullification -Ramaswamy R Iyer
-The Hindu Given industry concerns and the desire to accelerate industrialisation, the government could have reopened the debate on the land act. Instead, it has wholly accepted one perception of the conflict, and sought to undo the compromise embodied in the 2013 Act without a review This article will not go into the question of the propriety of the ordinance route to legislation in this case, but will try to present a...
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