-India Spend/ Scroll.in Reservations are not the answer to every social and economic problem. More needs to be done to provide safety nets to vulnerable groups. About 10 crore to 12 crore Indians lost their jobs in the immediate aftermath of the countrywide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19, IndiaSpend reported in April. But the lockdown has impacted the disadvantaged caste groups with a far greater magnitude than the upper castes, found...

-Newsclick.in The document is exclusionary, reactionary and promotes conformism aimed at serving the interests of capitalism In a document like the New Education Policy, one must distinguish platitudes from new provisions, including the dropping of old platitudes. Thus, phrases like “education is a public good”, “6 per cent of GDP should be earmarked for education” are just platitudes, unless some concrete suggestions are advanced to realise these. In short, repeating old platitudes is...

-The New Indian Express From strengthening Gram Sabha to shunning alcoholism, IFS officer motivates villagers to transform their lives through ‘shramdaan’, which helped them build 700 check-dams. JHARKHAND: Nothing could have changed Ara and Keram villages under Ormanjhi Block, located about 45 km from Jharkhand capital Ranchi. The people sold forest wood, did menial works and drank the local spirit. The result was only natural: The two villages were economically and socially most backward...

-IdeasforIndia.in Usharmukti, a project of the Government of West Bengal, is being carried out in collaboration with civil society organisations in the western part of the state, to carry out watershed activities under MNREGA to conserve soil and water. In this note, Ashwini Kulkarni describes the main idea behind and working of the innovative project from her visit to the project area. When a farmer says that with potato in Rabi season...

-The Indian Express To fulfil the constitutional requirement, reservation must be based on a rigorous identification of economic backwardness. The introduction of the 124th constitutional amendment that provides the possibility of quotas for the “economically weaker sections” (EWS) has rekindled the debate on reservations. These quotas diverge from reservation policies for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other socially and educationally backward classes, by jettisoning caste or community identity as the...