-The Indian Express A forest FIRe which started in Simlipal in February and has been raging for nearly a week now, was finally brought under control. How FIRe prone is the forest? What caused the FIRe, and how intense was it? Bhubaneswar: The Simlipal forest reserve area frequently witnesses forest FIRes during dry weather conditions. A FIRe which started in the biosphere reserve area in February and has been raging for nearly...

When a massive sum of public money is spent on a programme like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA)--a demand-driven programme, there is likelihood of financial misappropriations and mismanagement. Thankfully there are checks and balances in the rural employment guarantee legislation to counter such malpractices. It is worth noting that the total allocation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) for 2020-21 was Rs. 1,11,500.00 crore (R.E.), up...

-The Hindu The Registrar-General of India (RGI) is preparing to conduct field trials of the FIRst phase of the Census and the National Population Register (NPR) using a mobile application in all the States and Union Territories, a senior government official told The Hindu. The FIRst phase involving house listing and housing census, along with updating the NPR, was scheduled from April 1 last year, but was postponed indefinitely due to the...

-The Indian Express The NEP’s assault on playgrounds deprives children, particularly those belonging to lower castes and the urban poor, of their right to play in safe and adequate spaces. Children, especially in urban areas, are disenfranchised from equitable spatial resources, despite being equal members of society. The access to playgrounds, the only lands allotted for children’s needs, depends on class and caste privileges. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory...

-The Hindu Decision taken “in the context of the onslaught of the government”, it says The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) affiliated to the RSS has announced a phase-wide agitation from March 15 to November 11 against the proposed disinvestment programme of the public sector units (PSUs) by the Union government. The decision was taken at a two-day meeting of the BMS’ PSUs Coordination Committee in Hyderabad that ended on Friday. The meeting came...