-Down to Earth Allocation of village land for the development of solar and wind parks at the cost of pasture land is detrimental for villages Residents of Devikot village in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district are fighting to protect a sacred grove that caters to the forage requirements of more than 35,000 large and small animals in the area. Sacred groves are areas of natural vegetation protected by village communities due to religious reasons. Historically,...

-IndiaToday.in Despite government claims, coronavirus cases are growing fastest in India among the worst affected countries, and improvements in India have plateaued.   Chenai/ New Delhi: Most discussions on India’s Covid-19 outbreak centre on the high number of cases, now third in the world after the United States and Brazil. The messaging from the government has been that things are getting better. However, a broader look at the month’s data shows that...

-Down to Earth The ordinance does not expressly define ‘extraordinary circumstances’: Such legislative ambiguity makes one question the entire exercise of introducing this particular provision As the Union government announced massive reforms as part of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) relief package, attention went to three agriculture sector ordinances related to farmers’ trade, contract farming and amendments in the Essential Commodities Act. While each of the three ordinances have far-reaching implications from legal...

-Outlook India If Delhi Police has done its investigation without fear or favour, why does it want its own prosecutors? Successive governments in India, unlike in China, have been able to get away with a lot. From the Delhi riots of 1984 and the mass killings of 2002 in Gujarat to periodic communal violence and decades of state violence and repression in Jammu & Kashmir, India has escaped being put in the...

-The Tribune The job guarantee scheme kept the rural sector afloat during the pandemic-induced lockdown. The number of people employed under MGNREGA in Punjab has gone up considerably. AMID the Covid crisis, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has sustained thousands of villagers who had been rendered jobless across Punjab. These also include the youth who returned to villages after they lost their jobs in towns and cities. After the...