-The Indian Express We hope that our judiciary will exercise its immense constitutional power to lead and supervise a free, fair and speedy investigation into the heinous allegation of brutal rape and the completely illegal forced cremation and illegal detention by the UP police. People who died of the plague or some other contagious disease were carried out of the village and their bodies were burnt without the dignity of a proper...

-Press release by National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (NCSPA) dated 1st October 2020 Despite explicit constitutional provision and guidelines, the Dalit community across India remain the worst sufferers of the scourge of the caste system, which perpetuates not an only social hierarchy but also institutional discrimination and social exclusion. In the last few months under Covid-19 pandemic, India witnessed an alarming increase in the cases...

Nearly 24 fatal accidents and 47 serious accidents have happened in various coal mines of the country during this year till 31st August. Likewise, 18 fatal accidents and 13 serious accidents have taken place in non-coal mines during the same time period. The accident figures are low this year in comparison to the previous ones thanks to a lower demand for output from these mines against the backdrop of COVID-19...

-Down to Earth Complex groundwater systems cannot be controlled or predicted, but need to be better managed and made more efficient The Central Ground Water Authority’s (GGWA) latest guideline — banning the grant of no-objection certificates (NoC) for extracting groundwater to all new industries coming up in ‘over-exploited’ areas — is yet another duplication of previous failed policy regulations. By implication, the new regulatory policy is not pretentious about looking at the problem...

-The Hindu The economic situation warrants enhanced government expenditure; the policy challenge is to minimise the growth fall India’s growth in the first quarter of 2020-21 at (-) 23.9% showed one of the highest contractions globally. Global growth prospects for 2020 have been projected by a number of multilateral institutions and rating agencies including that for India. The 2020-21 real GDP growth for India is forecast in the range of (-) 5.8%...