Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-Scroll.in Besides, by making states responsible for buying vaccines, Modi’s government has deftly deflected possible criticism for future shortages. Over the past few weeks, the second wave of Covid-19 infections and the acute shortage of vaccines had led to considerable public anger against the government. Despite being fully aware of a potential vaccine shortage, the Union government had held back permissions for new vaccines, such as the Sputnik V, to be used in...

Although services provided by the gig and platform workers touch the lives of each one of us, we have little knowledge about the role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work. Such digital labour platforms have created unprecedented opportunities for workers, businesses and society. However, they also pose serious threats to decent work and fair competition. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that the...

-Scroll.in Technologies are known to increase bias, resulting in inaccurate judgements for minorities. In 2012, in United States’ Santa Cruz, a company called Predpol Inc devised a software that promised to predict future criminal activities by analysing past criminal records and identifying patterns. This simple idea of “predictively policing” an unsuspecting population aimed to change the face of law and order in the US. Police departments in major US cities began to use...

-The Hindu Notes several instances of govt pressure on media outlets Washington DC: In its 2020 Human Rights Report, the U.S. State Department said the harassment and detention of journalists critical of the (Indian) government in their reporting and on social media, has continued, although the government generally respected the freedom of expression. It also said government’s requests for user data from Internet companies had increased “dramatically.” The report, which is submitted each...