-The Hindu Censorship by hardline Hindu groups has grown, says Amnesty Criticising the government for using archaic laws to suppress dissent, Amnesty International, in its report for 2015-16, has included India among countries that have failed to match up to the “international standard” of freedom of expression and civil liberties. The report especially noted that over the past year, crackdown on freedom of expression by majoritarian groups linked to the government had intensified,...

-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...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, a pet project of the Prime Minister, has found few takers in its second phase with only 32 of over 750 MPs identifying panchayats to adopt: 24 from the Lok Sabha and six from the Rajya Sabha. Some sent in entries after the January 31 deadline. Narendra Modi adopted Nagepur, a village in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency on February 17. In the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The health ministry has chalked out an overarching National Multi-Sectoral Action Plan with the aim to reduce premature deaths from cancer, diabetes and heart diseases by 25% in the next 10 years (by 2025). The plan, which includes initiatives and measures from at least 27 government departments including ministries like environment, women and child development, urban development, industries etc, is in the final stage and...

Although there is sufficient data and evidence available in the public domain to argue whether there has been halving of poverty between 1990 and 2015, the same cannot be said with conviction about the halving of hunger—one of the targets set under the erstwhile Millennium Development Goals framework (replaced recently by SDGs). This is because the recently released data by the National Family Health Survey-4 (conducted in 2015-16) and the...