-Firstpost.com Last year, in May 2017, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) notified the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules 2017, drafted to ensure the welfare of animals in livestock and cattle markets. The rules were formed in compliance with an order of the Supreme Court (Gauri Maulekhi versus Union of India) to regulate livestock markets in order to curb illegal cattle trafficking and...

-The Indian Express The NDA government’s approach towards MGNREGA — the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act — has differed from that of the previous UPA regime in one significant way: There is greater emphasis now in the building of “individual household” assets, as opposed to “community” assets, under the scheme that provides 100 days of guaranteed wage employment annually to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do...

-The Times of India • What does the Finance Commission do? In India’s federal structure, taxation powers and obligations for various services — like law and order, health, education — are unequally shared between the Centre and the states. Hence, the Constitution mandates the setting up of a Finance Commission (FC) every five years to recommend how revenues from central taxes should be shared between the Centre and the states. A fair...

-Livemint.com The current National Forest Policy dates back to 1988 before India’s economic liberalization started and now the government wants a revision, as it perceives a decline in corporate investments into the forest sector New Delhi: Imagine two scenarios. One is a natural forest, nature’s complex multi-layered ecosystem and a landscaped home to 80% of all terrestrial biodiversity where thousands of species of plants, animals and microorganisms interact and thrive. The second...

-TheWire.in Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialize. On March 14, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) uploaded a draft of the National Forest Policy 2018, three decades years after the last such policy. The draft appears to be an attempt to shift the approach towards forestry in India – specifically, from a local community- and ecology-centric approach emphasised in the...