-CivilSocietyOnline.com Thiruvananthapuram: VEHICLES scattered left and right as Ushakumari S., surreally perched on her scooter in a personal protective equipment (PPE) suit, drove at top speed through Kollam’s streets to get to a hospital. Riding pillion with her was a COVID-19 patient, Ramla Beevi, who needed her second antigen test done. Ushakumari had got fed up, waiting for an ambulance to ship the patient, and decided to take matters into her own...
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In Rural India, COVID-19 Outbreaks Have One Standout Feature: Speed -Murad Banaji, Aashish Gupta and Leena Kumarappan
-TheWire.in If the current data is anything to go by, the low death figures reflect poor testing and recording rather than some natural “protection” from severe disease in rural India. Many rural areas were hit hard during India’s devastating recent COVID-19 surge. The scale of this rural epidemic remains largely hidden in official figures. But a flood of news reports tell a tale of infection sweeping rapidly through villages, high mortality, minimal...
More »Is Uttarakhand abusing disaster management laws to allow rampant riverbed mining? -Mukta Joshi
-Newslaundry.com The state’s River Training Policy appears designed to allow near unfettered mining of sand and boulders by private contractors, bypassing green clearance and scientific assessment. In November 2020, a few months before floods ravaged Uttarakhand, the deputy collector of Purnagiri in Tanakpur district announced an open auction of tenders to desilt the riverbed in Champawat’s villages. Tenders for government work usually seek the lowest bidder, the contractor willing to do the job...
More »Why the Haryana Govt Must Not Evict One Lakh Residents of Khori Gaon -Manju Menon and Ishita Chatterjee
-TheWire.in It is very important that a full plan is created to address this crisis while keeping twin objectives of forest conservation and social housing at its centre. On June 7, Supreme Court reiterated its order of February and April 2020 to evict the Khori Gaon basti on the Delhi-Haryana border, falling within the Faridabad Municipal Corporation (FMC) jurisdiction. The eviction orders are premised on a set of cases heard in the...
More »Karnataka High Court directs decentralised governance of lakes in rural and urban areas
-GaonConnection.com Karnataka has about 40,000 lakes and close to 10,000 lakes have already disappeared. In the wake of authorities failing to do enough to conserve these lakes, the Karnataka High Court has asked the government to decentralise the mechanism of lake governance both in rural and urban areas by involving local bodies. More details here. Directing a new model of water bodies’ governance in the state, the Karnataka High Court, on June...
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