-Hindustan Times Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka have written to Centre seeking a relaxation of the rule restricting employment to manual labour because large parts of these 3 states have rocky terrain. New Delhi: At least three states have asked the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to allow the use of machines in work done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which is restricted to manual labour,...

-Hindustan Times Many analysts have underlined that the BJP’s below-par performance in the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections reflected concern, among other factors, about the economy, which slumped to a growth rate of 6% in the three months to June 30, the slowest pace in over six years. The government has already spent nearly 80% of its full-year budget for the flagship rural job guarantee programme, top officials said on Friday,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Sulphur dioxide (SO2), a significant contributor to air pollution, may be within the national ambient air quality standard in all major cities in India, but the country is the largest cumulative emitter of this pollutant in the world and thus prone to being a victim of a cocktail of several toxic air pollutants. As a reactive pollutant, SO2 reacts with other air pollutants to form sulphate...

-TheWire.in Millions have been displaced, while a loss of crop and reduced yield are expected across the state. For the past few months, Bihar has been making headlines for many reasons. Disease outbreak, mob lynching or the state’s political affairs have seen it receive plenty of media coverage. But the state is now in the news for concurrently facing two natural disasters: drought and flood. This is not the first time that Bihar...

-TheWire.in Instead, we should focus on why population control efforts have mostly translated to controlling women's, and not men's, fertility. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear that the government considers population explosion to be in the way of India’s development. This isn’t the first time in the history of independent India when a government has tried to control the population. A similar fear led to the...