-The Hindu People migrating due to environmental disasters should be accorded ‘refugee’ status in international law An increasing number of people globally are facing displacement due to droughts, famines, rising sea levels and other natural disasters caused by climate change. This class of migrants has been labelled as ‘environmental refugees’ in popular literature. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international body reviewing trends of internal displacement, an estimated 24 million...

The term 'development' holds a positive connotation for most policymakers. However, there are examples abound, which indicates that development also cause enormous misery to the people, particularly the poor and the marginalized. Take for instance, the organizing of 2010 Commonwealth Games, due to which massive infrastructural development in the national capital was undertaken when Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi. It has been estimated that almost 2 lakh...

-TheWire.in After being forcefully evicted from their homes in June and without any rehabilitation, the residents have been living on the streets under tarpaulin huts. In September, the office of the Municipal Corporation of Dharamshala (MCD) saw a sudden flurry of anxious activity. People at the MCD doorstep, now lining up to apply for affordable housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY), were residents of the city a few months ago....

Expanding irrigation network in the country is considered as essential to raise agricultural production in the face of increased frequency of droughts. However, a newly released report from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare shows that there has actually been a fall in the growth rate of net irrigated area during the recent two decades. The report entitled State of Indian Agriculture 2015-16 reveals that the growth rate in...

-PTI New Delhi: Only three of Odisha's 568 hospitals have fire safety clearance, the National Human Rights Commission said today and issued a notice to the state government over the fire incident at a hospital in Bhubaneswar which has left 21 people dead so far. The Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports that at least 21 people died and more than 100 others were injured in the blaze that...