-Hindustan Times According to a state government report, there has been an 80% drop in cases of mangrove destruction in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) from 2015 to 2016. However, activists have criticised the survey, pointing to the fact that no one has been convicted of destroying mangroves since 2013. The report, by the Mumbai Mangrove Conservation Unit, a body constituted by the Bombay High Court that works under the state mangrove...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre today proposed its highest ever budget allocation for the rural job guarantee scheme but critics rued that the increase was just Rs 500 crore over the revised allocation last year. Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced Rs 48,000 crore for projects and payment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, flagging the hike from the Rs 38,500 crore allocated last year (See chart). Social activists, however,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In a reprieve for Lawyers Collective, the NGO run by noted lawyer Indira Jaising, the Bombay High Court on Monday by an interim order defreezed the non-FCRA/ domestic bank accounts of the organisation. Justice Mahesh Sonak, while admitting the petition filed by Lawyers Collective challenging the cancellation of its registration, also halted the Union government's directive to the charity commissioner to dispose off its assets. "The allegations...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: While only 1.9% government schools in rural Jharkhand do not have toilets, students of 35.3% government schools in these areas are debarred from using toilets, which are despite having the facility in their campus, the latest Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) has said, highlighting the lackadaisical approach of the government in maintaining the infrastructure they invest in. In 2016, the state government claimed that almost all 40,000 odd...

-Scroll.in A farmer describes her efforts to preserve 12 breeds of draught as well milch indigenous cattle. On Monday, the so-far peaceful protests against jallikattu on Chennai’s Marina Beach turned violent as the police sought to clear agitators from what had become ground zero of the movement against the Supreme Court ban on the bull-taming sport. Though an ordinance cleared on Saturday allowed the sport to take place this Pongal, the controversy...