-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Communal violence witnessed a rise in 2015, with 751 incidents recorded across the country as against 644 in 2014. According to data put out by the government in reply to a Lok Sabha question on Wednesday, there was also a rise in casualties resulting from communal unrest last year, with dead and injured up at 97 and 2,264 from 95 and 1,921 respectively in 2014. Incidentally,...

-TheWire.in We are in a moment when the global economy shows no signs of revival; Russia and Japan are faced with recession, and emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa are in dire straits. There is no silver lining visible as far as domestic industrial growth is concerned. At such a time, all eyes are on Union finance minister Arun Jaitley to see how he plans to sustain economic growth that...

-Livemint.com Overall, we find that social sector investments have in fact increased across all states, except Bihar In February 2015, the Government of India accepted the Fourteenth Finance Commission’s (FFC) recommendation to empower states with greater expenditure discretion. The states’ share in Union taxes, therefore, increased from 32% to 42%. While the move holds the promise to reform India’s centralized, one-size-fits-all approach to financing the social sector, the process adopted by...

-Down to Earth Activists claim the move was in response to the tribals’ protest against mining in their forest For the first time in 10 years of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), the Chhattisgarh government has cancelled forest rights allotted to tribals of Ghatbarra village in Surguja district. In an order issued on January 8, 2016, the state forest department stated that village residents were using their rights to oppose mining...

-TheHansIndia.com The ongoing drought is fuelling distress migration from districts in Telangana, a trend that was witnessed in the early 2000s. The severe drought conditions for the second consecutive year have led to crop failure, mounting debts, chronic unemployment and failure of the NREGA scheme, especially in the districts of Mahbubnagar, Medak, and Adilabad, forcing large-scale exodus of farmers and others.   The fruits of a people’s movement and the world’s largest anti-poverty...