-The Hindu In a year of economic slowdown and growing inequality, we have been presented with a stingy Budget that fails to ensure the bare necessities for all While the country continues to grapple with the health and economic crisis as a result of COVID-19, widespread hunger and food insecurity is a silent emergency that has not been getting sufficient attention. Unfortunately, the Union Budget also does not include any significant measures...

-Livemint.com The Survey expects the Indian economy to grow by 11% in real terms (adjusted for inflation) during 2021-22. This is close to the growth of 11.5% forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is good news. The economic survey of 2020-21 was published earlier in the day today. Like in the previous years, the economic survey tries to summarise the state of the Indian economy across various dimensions. Here are ten...

-Down to Earth Agriculture was the only sector to have clocked a positive growth at constant prices in 2020-21 The share of agriculture in gross domestic product (GDP) has reached almost 20 per cent for the first time in the last 17 years, making it the sole bright spot in GDP performance during 2020-21, according to the economic survey 2020-2021. The resilience of the farming community in the face of adversities made agriculture...

-The Hindu States such as Kerala, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat had the highest access to the bare necessities while it was the lowest in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tripura. Poorer States have reduced the gap with rich States when it comes to in providing their citizens with access to the basics of daily life — housing, water, power, sanitation, cooking gas — according to a new ‘Bare Necessities Index’ (BNI) in...

Large dams that cause environmental degradation and large-scale displacement, among other things, have been opposed in India by civil society organisations (CSOs), such as Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM) and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). A recently published study by the United Nations University's Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health along with other partner organisations reveals that tens of thousands of existing large...