--Press release by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights dated 20th October, 2021 GENEVA (20 October 2021) – Water is increasingly being treated as a mere commodity and even as a financial asset, a UN human rights expert told the UN General Assembly today, undermining the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation and the sustainability of the environment. Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the Special Rapporteur on the...

-The Telegraph Challenges to economic recovery in India and the world remain The International Monetary Fund revealed its outlook for the world economy last week. A year and a half after the pandemic, global recovery remained reassuringly strong: the world economy is expected to grow a tad slower (10 basis points) this year at 5.9 per cent and at an unchanged pace — 4.9 per cent — next year. But the exit...

-The Hindu Developed countries have committed under the Paris Agreement to allocate $ 100 billion per year from 2020 onwards to facilitate emission cuts in poorer countries and also to effect technology transfer in this context. Questions around how the $100 billion yearly commitment towards climate finance will be measured, and related technology transfer accounted for, remain unanswered, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at the conclusion of the Washington DC leg...

-Scroll.in Anganwadi staff need funds for infrastructure and supplies. Instead, the government gave them a new app that is riddled with problems. On the afternoon of August 23, the Chhota Sion urban health centre in the heart of Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum was suddenly awash with pink. Nearly 80 women, all dressed in saris and salwar suits in various shades of the colour, trooped into its lobby. Breaking up into groups, they spent...

-The New Indian Express Nearly 1,500 technical education teachers across 18 states had joined on a temporary basis in technical institutions in backward or “aspirational” districts in 2018. NEW DELHI: Despite intervention by the Union education ministry, only two states so far -- Bihar and Uttarakhand -- have agreed to absorb pass-outs from the Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology that were recruited in engineering institutes in rural and...