Scroll.in Since making headlines in January, Joshimath town in Uttarakhand continues to sink while the massive development projects, which locals insist are causing the subsidence, also continue. New cracks are appearing in the houses and roads of Joshimath town, along with deep cavities in the fields. But people who are affected, wait for rehabilitation, with only a few having received meagre compensation, that too for their houses alone. The government has neither come...

The Niti Aayog recently released its National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, according to which the poverty headcount ratio declined from 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019-21. In absolute numbers this translates to 135 million people exiting multidimensional poverty in this time period. In addition, a few days earlier, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its own Multidimensional Poverty Index, which in a press note said that,...

Scroll.in The Jan Vishwas Bill, 2023, passed by Lok Sabha on July 27, is in the news for its lenient approach to the crime of manufacturing “not of standard quality” (NSQ) drugs. But comparatively less attention is being paid to the adverse impact that the legislation will have on an equally serious issue, which is the regulation of pharmacies that have a key role to PLAy in India’s drug supply. To begin...

Peoples' Archive of Rural India Gaddamidi Rajeshwari became a landowner in 2018. “I was excited! I would be a woman who owns land.” Or at least she thought so, looking proudly at the official title deed in her hand. Five years later she is still waiting for the state to recognise her ownership of 1.28 acres of land in Barwad, 30 kilometres from her home in Yenkepalle village for which she...

The Union government told the Rajya Sabha on Monday (July 31) that it has no PLAns to empower the National Statistical Commission (NSC) using a legislation. Minister of state for statistics and programme implementation Rao Inderjit Singh was answering a question on whether the government is PLAnning to empower the NSC by insulating the selection process from political bias. Singh responded that said the chairman and members of the NSC are selected...