-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the Sri Lankan cricket team's dramatic protest against playing conditions highlighting the mounting embarrassment over Delhi's pollution, a PMO-headed panel met on Monday and reviewed the need for more accurate real-time monitoring of air quality and measures to control stubble burning. The monitoring of air quality and pollutants was considered necessary so that the sources of Delhi's bad air could be mapped and understood, and...

-Press Note from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Since the start of the FY 18, we have pointed out the willful misrepresentation of delays in wage payments, incomplete calculation of the full extent of compensation due to workers and the under provisioning of budgets for the program. In August, we released a report by independent researchers, that used the Ministry of Rural Development’s own data to show how the Central Government is deliberately...

-Hindustan Times/ Livemint.com TRAI in its new recommendations has backed the core principles of Net Neutrality. India’s telecom regulator has backed the basic principles of an open and free internet in its recommendations on net neutrality, a term which means people should get equal access to the internet and broadband providers should not favour any apps and services. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s guidelines released on Tuesday say that no internet access...

-Down to Earth Death of cotton farmers due to pesticide poisoning in the Vidarbha region raises vital questions about the government's attitude towards regulation of toxic pesticides One more evil has reared its ugly head in Maharashtra’s arid Vidarbha region, which has so far been infamous for farmer suicides. Some 35 farmers in the region have died of pesticide poisoning in last four months. Most of them were working in cotton and...

-The Times of India Nagpur: Monocrotophos, one of the pesticides used by majority of the victims, was removed from the list of recommended chemicals by Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) much before spraying claimed over 40 lives in the region. The premier research agency of the central government issues advisories related to use of pesticide combinations on the cotton crop. Considering its hazardous nature, monocrotophos-based chemicals were removed from the list....