-The Indian Express The need of the hour is to expand distribution under the PDS. Failing that, the country is heading towards another round of wasteful stock accumulation even as poor people struggle to feed their families. The paradox of “hunger amidst plenty” has haunted India for a long time and shows no sign of going away. On the contrary, it reached a new plane in 2020. On the one hand, the...

-PTI/ The New Indian Express The analysis includes dam decommissioning or ageing case studies from the USA, France, Canada, India, Japan, and Zambia and Zimbabwe. NEW YORK: Over a thousand large dams in India will be roughly 50 years old in 2025 and such aging embankments across the world pose a growing threat, according to a UN report which notes that by 2050, most people on Earth will live downstream of tens...

-Hindustan Times Among the major concerns of the gram sabhas with the proposed acquisition of the forest land is that it is being done without their consent and even before the land is diverted under the provisions of the forest conservation act Ten gram sabhas from Chhattisgarh’s Korba district, mainly consisting of people from the Gond tribe, have raised objections to Centre’s intention to acquire 712.072 hectares (ha) of land for mining...

-The Hindu Unions to study proposal, return for talks on January 22. Farm union leaders will consider a proposal from the Central government to suspend the implementation of three contentious farm laws for the next one and a half years while a committee is formed to look into their demands. Union leaders said the Centre had also offered to submit an affidavit to the Supreme Court to this effect. They will discuss the...

-Hindustan Times The concentration of political and economic power has made democratic contestation challenging. Citizens are finding other methods Fearing that India’s controversial proposed farm laws will disproportionately benefit a few corporate magnates, farmers have made Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance storefronts and Reliance Jio infrastructure the sites of major protest over the past few months. While Ambani has insisted that his company has no plans to enter corporate farming, his purported political networks...