-Newsclick.in Street vendors have taken to the streets as they say they were pushed to poverty due to closure of weekly markets in the national capital. With bowls in their hands to signify destitution, thousands of street vendors took out a march on Saturday to the residences of the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minster of Delhi, demanding permission to resume their vending business. These are mostly vendors who depend on the...

-TheCitizen.in At least 25,000 children lost their mother to covid in the past year An estimated 1.5 million children in 21 countries, including 119,000 in India, suffered the death of their primary or secondary caregiver between April 2020 and March 2021, according to a recent study. Published in the Lancet medical journal, the study titled ‘Global minimum estimates of children affected by COVID-19’ estimates that 25,500 children in India lost their mother to...

-Down to Earth Aggressive sugarcane farming contaminates land, water The Union government intends to increase the amount of ethanol in the energy mix to lower the country’s dependence on imported oil and carbon footprint, as well as stabilise petrol prices.  India currently blends about 8.5 per cent ethanol in petrol. The government is targeting a 10 per cent ethanol blend by 2022 and a 20 per cent blend (E20) by 2025. E20 can save...

-Macroscan.com/ Livemint.com There is a common trope, fed especially to generations born after 1991, that economic progress and modernization in India really occurred only after ‘liberalizing’ economic reforms were introduced three decades ago. This is a travesty of the truth. Certainly, conditions for most Indians have improved since that watershed year. Per capita income went up more rapidly than before, life expectancy went up, infant and maternal mortality decreased, income poverty...

-Down to Earth The focus must be on safeguarding women and girls’ reproductive health. Smaller families can be achieved by ensuring gender equality, empowering women The law proposed by the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission on July 7, 2021 on two-child policy compels couples to limit their families through a series of incentives and disincentives. There is no evidence, however, that coercive policies can truly reduce fertility. Two-child policies are known to disproportionately impact...