Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...

-Down to Earth Water bodies have become even more critical in current times when cities are facing the challenge of rapid, unplanned urbanisation Lakes and wetlands are an important part of urban ecosystem. They perform significant environmental, social and economic functions — from being a source of drinking water and recharging groundwater to supporting biodiversity and providing livelihoods. Their role becomes even more critical in the present context, when cities are facing the...

-Down to Earth Tribunal calls for doing away with general permissions given to commercial entities to withdraw groundwater The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has called for commercial entities to follow new rules for getting permission to extract groundwater. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) will now form the basis of granting such permissions, the NGT bench said. The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti (water) and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) were ordered by the...

-Livemint.com As a part of the relief measures, while the PDS system could reach a vast majority of people both in rural and urban areas, the system has failed to identify the affected informally employed labour force in largely urban areas. This makes a case for introducing an urban replica of MGNREGA With laudable measures like the increased allocation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Pradhan Mantri...

-Hindustan Times OPHI director Sabina Alkire, who led the development of the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) in 2010, said: “India remains the country that has the largest reduction in number of poor, with over 270 million persons leaving poverty 2005-6 to 2015-16”. India lifted as many as 270 million people out of multidimensional poverty between 2005-6 and 2015-16 – the most in a global study of 75 countries – reflecting progress before...