-Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, January-June, 2021 This note examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on food security and indebtedness among rural households. It is based on a telephone survey of 164 households from 26 villages across 13 States. The survey was conducted by the Pandemic Studies Unit of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS), Bangalore, in October 2020. Of these 26 villages included in the 2020...

-TheThirdPole.net A response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative has to contend with a history of authoritarian, carbon-heavy development that both China and its opponents have pursued In a phone call to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 26 March, US President Joe Biden said that “democratic countries should have an infrastructure plan to rival China’s Belt and Road initiative”. This statement has been the focus of intense scrutiny in Central...

-The Hindu Environment Appraisal Committee which flagged concerns over project has now ‘recommended’ it ‘for grant of terms of reference’ for EIA studies The Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) - Infrastructure I of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has flagged serious concerns about NITI Aayog’s ambitious project for Great Nicobar Island (‘NITI Aayog vision for Great Nicobar ignores tribal, ecological concerns’, The Hindu, March 21, 2021). The committee has,...

-CaravanMagazine.in A series of interviews with over a dozen Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, mahants of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara PARIshad and various officers associated with the Haridwar Mahakumbh revealed that the former chief minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat was fired overnight in March 2021 for insisting that Mahakumbh should be restricted. At least five mahants and two BJP leaders confirmed that the ABAP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and some Uttarakhand...

-Hindustan Times Earlier this week, the ministry released a user manual for online submission of an undertaking on no increase in pollution load due to expansion, on its PARIvesh website. The environment ministry has allowed companies operating in several industries, including some polluting ones, to expand capacities on the basis of a self-certification that this will not “increase the pollution load”, creating the room for potential misdeclaration (and misuse), especially in light...