-The Hindu In the newly proposed draft notification seeking to amend the Environment Impact Assessment, the Central government offers a way out to those who have violated environmental norms The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has issued a draft notification seeking to amend the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of 2006, allowing those who violate this law to continue work with an Environment Supplement Plan (ESP). This is the first...

-Livemint.com At present, the government procures about 1.5 lakh tonnes of pulses, and this will be enhanced to eight lakh tonnes New Delhi: In a significant decision to tame rising pulse prices, the Centre has decided to raise buffer stocks by over five times. At present, the government procures about 1.5 lakh tonnes of pulses, and this will be enhanced to eight lakh tonnes. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting...

-The Hindu Gaya (Bihar)/ Gumla (Jharkhand): It was a few tense minutes for nearly 1,000 residents gathered under a shamiana in Bharno block office in Gumla district, about 50 kilometres south of Ranchi. The crowd was awaiting the arrival of Sunil Kumar Keshari, the ration shop dealer of Bharno. “Out of 200 residents of Pandarni village, only three can get rations from Keshari’s shop,” said Sukramani, a resident of the village. Clearly it...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has done well in curbing stunting over the last decade, but the growing number of overweight people, particularly those prone to diabetes, may be a cause of concern, the Global Nutrition Report, 2016, says. Though still home to one-third of the world's 159 million stunted children aged below five years, India has witnessed a sharp decline in the prevalence of stunting, from 48% in 2006...