-The Indian Express Women form 80 per cent of urban migrants, but public policy is blind to their concerns. A recent UN report says India is on the “brink of an urban revolution”, as its population in towns and cities are expected to reach 600 million by 2031. Fuelled by migration, megacities of India (Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata) will be among the largest urban concentrations in the world. Interestingly, the 2011 Census...

-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...

-The Hindu The problem with the SC/ST Act is the failure of the criminal justice system to recognise its own casteist biases For India’s Dalits and Adivasis, May 1 this year was a ‘May Day’ in more ways than one. It was May Day, the day to commemorate the labour movement (the vast majority of them do belong to the working classes), and also ‘mayday’ in the maritime sense, an occasion to...

-Down to Earth Waste pickers recycle almost 20 per cent of India's wastes. Yet they are unrecognised, face discrimination and are not entitled to government schemes India produces about 5.31 million tonnes of waste each year and is facing an unprecedented solid waste management crisis. Coupled with an upward trend in industrialisation, rural migration, spending and an increasing propensity for capitalist consumption, the amount of waste generated in India will continue...

-Livemint.com The historic farmer protest launched on 1 June 2017 had a nationwide impact and raised several demands of farmers which still remain unaddressed Mumbai: The Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha, a farmers’ organization affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, will launch yet another protest on farm issues from 1 June to mark the first anniversary of the Maharashtra farmer protests. The Maharashtra state council of Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha...