-Hindustan Times Prayagraj, or the erstwhile Allahabad, tops this unemployment list with an unemployment rate of 8.9%. It’s no mere coincidence that Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj has the dubious distinction of being the city with the highest unemployment rate in the country. Government record shows that a whopping 1.5 lakh unemployed youth are in the queue of those Hunting jobs which are few and far in between. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in...

-Hindustan Times Since Independence, waves of forest encroachments have been regularised on one pretext or another, and this unfortunate trend seems to be continuing. With a recent United Nations report warning that one million species of plants and animals are poised on the brink of extinction, we need to take all forest destruction very seriously The Forest Rights Act (FRA) was originally meant to redress historical injustice to genuine forest dwellers by...

-The Telegraph Some clauses of the draft of the Indian Forest Act 2019 are extraordinarily undemocratic Forests are considered planetary resources of great importance: as carbon sinks, as repositories for biodiversity, as effective tools for local climate control, and as a source of timber and related produce. Forests have been dwelling places for people, too. It is important from the point of view of sustainable development that forests be preserved and biodiversity...

-Down to Earth Illegal mining has ravaged the mountain range in the past few decades. Down To Earth investigates the loss and traces the legal developments in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi Abdal khan is a prisoner of geography. A resident of Nimli village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Khan, who claims to be over 100 years old, is mostly bedridden in his home nestled in the foothills of the Aravallis. He stays quiet...

-News18.com Considering how governments have handed forests to destructive industries, why don't these wildlife-first organisations demand the eviction of the Forest Departments from forest lands? Imagine people who live in clearings inside an extensive dense forest, cultivating paddy, harvesting grass, bamboo, and mushrooms, and Hunting the occasional deer. They stay awake at night, beating drums to tell their elephant brothers not to come for their hard-earned crop. Once the harvest is over,...