-Business Standard Land acquisition cases take on an average 20 years to navigate the courts Within three years of the framing of the new land law by the Centre, as many as 280 cases have landed in the Supreme Court using the window the law provides to challenge pending acquisitions. Yet land switching from farming to industry need not be a zero sum game as two key studies on land released last...

-Down to Earth Sri Sri Ravishankar’s organisation went back on its commitment to pay the fine for hosting a three-day festival that affected Yamuna floodplains The Art of Living Foundation, which is led by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar, must pay remaining Rs 4.75-crore fine for hosting a massive festival on the banks of the River Yamuna in Delhi, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said today. Strongly criticising organisation for going ahead...

-TheWire.in Farmer suicides and hunger deaths plague flagship village of SP government. “Have you heard of kangaali mein aata geela? That is our situation,”says Sugha Singh as he sits outside Balwan Singh’s house along with other village men under the tree on a warm February afternoon. He is referring to an old Hindi idiom which means getting into more hardships one after another. They are mourning the death of Munni Devi, 78,...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation shows India’s social welfare measures like MGNREGS to be worryingly patchy Following the announcement of demonetisation, reports of its devastating impact on informal sector workers, farmers and migrants began to pour in from across the country. Seeking evidence on two questions — do social security measures work in the face of such an economic shock, and do these programmes themselves face disruption because of demonetisation — we conducted...

-Scroll.in India's social-sector spending remains woefully low and despite claims of being a pro-farmer Budget, the effective allocations are nearly the same as last year. Some commentators expected that the Union Budget 2017-’18 would craft a sharp departure from earlier budgets of this government. This it would do to mitigate the immense suffering of millions of casual workers, farmers and small traders caused by the “shock and awe” of the astoundingly callous...