-Down to Earth Water bodies have become even more critical in current times when cities are facing the challenge of rapid, unplanned urbanisation Lakes and wetlands are an important part of urban ecosystem. They perform significant environmental, social and economic functions — from being a source of drinking water and recharging groundwater to supporting biodiversity and providing livelihoods. Their role becomes even more critical in the present context, when cities are facing the...

-TheWire.in A recent survey conducted becomes invaluable in terms of Data on the socio-economic backgrounds of seasonal and short-term migrants. The lack of a comprehensive database on India’s migrants has been one of the foremost hurdles preventing the Indian government from providing direct cash transfers to them. The most that the government has been able to say about migrants is their aggregate number. Indeed, one of the biggest non-medical tragedies of the COVID-19...

-The Indian Express In a particularly devastating flood in Assam this year, 49 children have been reported dead so far. Guwahati: On June 1, a 13-year-old in Assam’s Nagaon district drowned while chasing ducks in a flooded river near his house. A month later, on July 1, a six-year-old slipped and fell into the slushy waters of the Champabati river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, in Dhubri district while making her way...

-The Indian Express The Data shows that acute respiratory infection led to 3,740 deaths in 2018 -- the highest in six years (according to these provisional estimates). The highest number of deaths due to acute respiratory infection were reported in West Bengal (732), followed by Uttar Pradesh (699), Andhra Pradesh (587), Delhi (492). After declining for two years, the average number of heat wave days increased 82.6 per cent year-on-year to 157...

-Down to Earth Tribunal calls for doing away with general permissions given to commercial entities to withdraw groundwater The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has called for commercial entities to follow new rules for getting permission to extract groundwater. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) will now form the basis of granting such permissions, the NGT bench said. The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti (water) and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) were ordered by the...