-Deccan Chronicle Maintaining green cover (not just trees, but also grass and small plants) is a big challenge in Delhi due to the shortage of water. With the quality of Delhi’s air has again reached critical levels with severe pollution, alarm bells have gone off, and the Delhi government announced it would bring back the “odd-even” scheme, that seems to be turning into an annual ritual. (The plan has been temporarily kept...

-TheWire.in Based on a militarised notion of ‘targeting’, such welfare policies deny citizens the right to basic services. In an incisive analysis on anti-poverty and other social security programmes, Professor Amartya Sen astutely asks why the notion of targeting, which is essentially a military concept, is so routinely invoked in analytical discourses on basic welfare rights for the people as well as in policy framing in this respect. Indeed, why would an...

-The Hindu Studies on the Swachh Bharat MISsion don’t confirm the government’s claims On October 2, 2017, the Swachh Bharat MISsion (SBM) completed its third year. Over Rs. 60,000 crore has been spent on the programme, but despite its scope and importance, there is very little objective evidence about its performance So far the numbers that have been widely cited by the government are from its own administrative data and the Swachh Survekshan...

-The Hindu Seeks response of Centre, Punjab and Haryana govts. The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre and the governments of Punjab, Delhi and Haryana on measures taken to counter the smog and pollution choking the national capital and surrounding areas. Acknowledging the dire consequences that continued exposure to peaking levels of air pollution would visit on the public, including schoolchildren, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A petition seeking a ban on 99 pesticides already outlawed or restricted in advanced nations has prompted the Supreme Court to seek responses within four weeks from the ministries of agriculture and chemical-and-fertilisers besides the Central Insecticides Board. These pesticides are killing hundreds in India and causing serious illness to thousands, the bench of Chief Justice Dipak MISra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud heard on Monday. Moved...