-The Indian Express Environment ministry clears 229 projects in a month, up from 217 in a quarter. Wary of the perception that his ministry is clearing too many projects too fast, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has asked ministry officials to replace the word ‘diversion’ of forest land with ‘reforestation’ in all communications. An intra-ministry communication issued on July 16 by Javadekar’s private secretary Vinay Srivastava stated: “Hon’ble minister has desired that henceforth...

-FirstPost.com Travelling across the country for the past five months to bring farmers’ voices to urban audiences through a programme called ‘Smart Agriculture’ - to be broadcast every Saturday and Sunday from 25 July on CNN-IBN - we have learnt that agriculture is not a low-profit activity. In fact, it returns more than double the amount of cash invested. Sandipan Suman, a 47 year-old agricultural sciences graduate and maize grower in Bihar’s...

-Livemint.com Loathed and mistrusted as they might be, lawyers from all backgrounds—economic, ethnic or otherwise—are needed to make for a vibrant society The lack of diversity in the legal profession, as evidenced by the inequality in the appointments of senior counsel at the Supreme Court and high courts, is a serious issue at the top level, but it actually starts at the very bottom, according to research surveying students who entered...

-The Hindu The US Trafficking in Persons report for 2015 said official complicity remained a “serious concern” Unveiling a closely-watched annual anti-trafficking report this week the U.S. State Department retained India’s classification as a “Tier II” nation for human trafficking concerns, which implied that the U.S. viewed India as a country that whose government did not fully comply with its Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards, but was making significant efforts...

-IIM Ahmedabad This paper captures the policy processes leading to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Ordinance, 2014. It maps the role and the influence of the three primary stakeholders - Government, industry and landowners - at various stages of the evolution of the land acquisition law in India. Land acquisition has remained a controversial issue in India resulting in conflicts between social,...