-The Telegraph New Delhi: A central scheme for skill training and jobs for rural youths has been witnessing below-target placement levels for the past five years, with the government's failure to answer key questions suggesting it is not monitoring the programme closely. Most of the training under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana is provided by NGOs - who are paid for it - and a few state government institutes. Their...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Hundreds of transgender people gathered here on Sunday to criticise the NDA government's proposed definition of their gender as too similar to the Hindu concept of Ardhanarishwara in its over-reliance on physical attributes. They demanded that self-declaration and not medical screening be the accepted mode of gender identification. The transgender community sees itself as people whose gender identity (self-identification as man or woman or neither or both) runs counter...

-TheWire.in Rights groups tell parliamentary panel that even though late environment minister Anil Dave had assured that concerns would be addressed, rules have still not been framed. New Delhi: Civil society organisations working on environmental conservation have petitioned the parliamentary comMISsion, asking for the repeal or amending of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF Act) to ensure its compliance with the Forest Rights Act (FRA) . Coming together under the banner of...

-The Financial Express How about planting bamboo extensively along the banks of the Yamuna to sequester the carbon from Delhi’s vehicle eMISsions? According to the World Bank, India’s per person eMISsion of carbon dioxide was 1,730 kg a year in 2014. Another website says this has risen to 1,900 kg in 2016. Bharathi Namby, a scientist, says it will take just five bamboo plants a year to make an Indian carbon-neutral,...

-The Hindu Member countries fail to reach agreement on food security right, centrality of development Buenos Aires: The December 10-13 meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s highest decision-making body in this ‘city of fair winds’ ended becalmed with the WTO’s 164 members unable to reach a consensus on substantive issues such as the food security right of developing countries and the centrality of development in multilateral trade negotiations. However, the Ministerial Conference managed...