-The Hindu The need of the hour is to invest in long-term crisis response mechanisms and resilience solutions Days after a glacier burst in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand caused flash floods, the scientific community is still struggling to understand what triggered the disaster. At the time of writing this article, the death toll was 34 with more than 170 people missing. The floods have also caused heavy damage to public and...

-The Hindu Despite official policy, OBC, SC and ST applicants less likely to gain admission as compared to those from General Categories Chennai: Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe applicants are half as likely to get selected for a Ph.D. programme at leading IITs in the country as aspirants from the General Category (GC) are. Data collated from a series of RTI applications, including from The Hindu, on the number of applicants versus the...

-Scroll.in The 126-year-old barrage has dangerously outlived its 50 years of life. Perched high up in the Western Ghats, adjacent to Kerala’s famed Periyar wildlife sanctuary, is a 126-year-old dam that has dangerously outlived the 50 years of life intended for it by colonial British engineers. NK Premachandran, a member of parliament from Kerala, describes the 53.6 metre-high Mullaperiyar dam on the Periyar river as “a ticking timebomb waiting to explode, not only...

-The Telegraph The committee said, “The absence of reliable and authentic data/information on the numbers of migrant workforce and their movement back to their home States following the outbreak of the Pandemic has apparently impacted the relief and rehabilitation measures.” Commending the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a parliamentary standing committee has said that there is no “better scheme” to provide “sustainable livelihood” to unskilled workers. The Standing Committee on Labour, headed by...

-The Hindu India’s leaders must recommit themselves to the ideas and activism of environmentalists involved with Uttarakhand Following flash floods at Chamoli in Uttarakhand, defence personnel are looking for missing persons in a mélange of rock, mud, water, and debris, airlifting rations to inaccessible villages, and repairing bridges and telecommunication networks. Social scientists are assessing the disaster’s impact on the region’s economy. Scientists and policy makers are debating whether climate change or...