-Press Release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 11 April, 2018 Stagnant wage rates are not the only rude shock that workers of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) received this month. Most of the them also remain unpaid for the work done by them in the past few months. Ninety-nine per cent of the Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) for MGNREGA wage payments sent to the Public Finance Management...

-The Telegraph Punjab assesses Damage after shock showers flatten crops and fuel storage fears Chandigarh: An unusual spell of rain on Monday morning has cast a cloud on the wheat crop yet to be harvested in Punjab, forcing the agriculture department to sent teams across the state to assess the Damage. The rains have come at a time Punjab has been grappling with a storage crisis. The state has a total storage capacity of...

-The Hindu The draft Forest Policy re-emphasises production forestry, raising many ecological and social concerns Government policy documents are statements of goals, priorities and strategies. If old strategies have failed or circumstances have changed, they should be revised. Given that our Forest Policy was last revised in 1988, changes are perhaps overdue. The new draft Forest Policy 2018, however, ignores the lessons from this period and returns to the state-managed forestry of...

-The Indian Express Farmers and activists, who have jointly raised the issue with NHSRC say that they were given “no time” to prepare for the meetings nor are the railway officials presenting the report of impact assessment. Vadodara/ Surat: The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRC), which has begun its meetings with “stakeholders” to assess the social impact and Damage from the ambitious Ahmedabad-Mumbai “bullet train” project, is facing protests from farmers...

-The Indian Express Booming Indian antelope populations threaten crops in many areas. Farmers are reluctant to strike against them, so the herds have only feral packs to fear. A couple of centuries ago, some four million blackbuck roamed the Indian landmass south of the Himalayas from undivided “Punjab to Nepal and probably in most parts of the Peninsula where the country is wooded and hilly, but not in dense jungle”. At...