-Down to Earth Manpower minimised, water used in the process recycled; environmentalists hail the model, but implementation under cloud Idol immersion in Kolkata has turned a new leaf in the wake of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic through the ‘wash-and-melt’ model. Tridhara Akalbodhon, a club in south Kolkata, used water jets to melt its durga idols instead of immerising them. Environmentalists, too, have hailed the model as environment-friendly. The idols were positioned through...

Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...

-CaravanMagazine.in On 17 May, for the third time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Narendra Modi administration extended India’s lockdown—one of the harshest across the world. For the third time, the Indian government did so without seeking scientific inputs from a national task force constituted to advise the central government on its pandemic response, according to multiple members of the team of scientists. There was a consensus among members we spoke...

-The Indian Express Urban areas require a different approach to end open defecation. The Swachh Bharat Mission is being executed by two different ministries — the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation for rural areas and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for urban areas. In the rural areas, the major challenge was to change the mindset of the populace so that they would start using household toilets rather than...

-Livemint.com * Only about half of the states have made any effort to reduce vacancies in police, judiciary and prisons * The legal aid system mandates that 80% of the Indian population is eligible to avail free legal services, says the report NEW DELHI: The first comprehensive analysis of India’s Manpower and capacity for justice delivery has painted a bleak picture of the ecosystem in terms of its various elements —police, prisons and...