-TheWire.in A survey of mazdoor mandis in Surat, Lucknow and Pune shows that even many months after the lockdown ended, workers are struggling to make ends meet. “Since the time of COVID-19 lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labour markets. Getting work for even two days a week is difficult for us. Daily wages too, for any work possible, have dipped by half,” says Rajesh Singh,...
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Farm laws must reflect regional and crop diversities -Yoginder K Alagh
-The Indian Express A modified version of the laws with a roadmap can be on the agenda — not everywhere, but most places outside the lands of the five rivers. The Supreme Court took a practical stand on the farm trade laws — implement them after consultation and with a well-defined framework spelt out. It led to the stand the government has taken — of holding the laws in abeyance for 18...
More »Unexpected? Western regional meet objects to Gujarat order 'blacklisting' RTI applicants
-Counterview.net Speaking at the western region consultation on the Right to Information (RTI) Act, whose two-day virtual session began on Thursday, Aruna Roy, formerly a member of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi-sponsored national advisory panel, has said that governments should recognise RTI has emerged as common citizens’ right to seek answers from authorities instead of seeing RTI pleas with suspicion. A pioneer of the RTI movement in India, Roy objecting to recent orders...
More »Scientists decry cow dung 'anti-radiation' claim -GS Mudur
-The Telegraph Experiments by Saurashtra University represent a 'classic example' of a study designed to reach a predetermined conclusion A group of Indian scientists has decried a Union government agency’s invocation of experiments by physicists at Gujarat’s Saurashtra University to claim cow dung can shield people from radiation. The experiments purportedly showed that cow-dung cakes partially blocked radiation from radioactive caesium. The Rashtriya Kamadhenu Aayog, a unit under the Union fisheries, animal husbandry...
More »Freedom of speech in India is slipping down a slippery slope -Kalpana Sharma
-Newslaundry.com Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta faces arrest for an article on the Adani Group, comedian Munawar Faruqui languishes in jail. The good news we were all waiting for in these bleak times came with India’s sensational win in the cricket test series against Australia in Brisbane on January 19. But even as we celebrated good times for Indian cricket, the bad times for Indian journalism and freedom of speech and expression continued. On...
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