-Down to Earth Aggressive sugarcane farming contaminates land, water The Union government intends to increase the amount of ethanol in the energy mix to lower the country’s dependence on imported oil and carbon footprint, as well as stabilise petrol prices.  India currently blends about 8.5 per cent ethanol in petrol. The government is targeting a 10 per cent ethanol blend by 2022 and a 20 per cent blend (E20) by 2025. E20 can save...

-TheWire.in The perception has grown over the years that those without any shelter are somehow getting a free ride. Headlines across several newspapers on the afternoon of July 3 declared “homeless and beggars should work; everything cannot be provided to them by the state”. This statement was attributed to the Bombay high court bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S. Kulkarni during its hearing of a public interest litigation...

-The Hindu Lockdowns need to be guided by trade-offs between harsh and mild policies Data show that as of now 26.2% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of them, only 1% live in low-income countries. By contrast, the richer nations, such as the U.S., Canada, Germany and Britain, registered above 50% vaccination by July 17. For India, the percentage of the adult population that...

-The Hindu Existing laws on juvenile justice, bonded labour and POCSO sufficient, say experts. The emphasis on criminalisation and policing instead of welfare measures in the new proposed anti-trafficking Bill makes it anti-migrants and anti-sex workers, warn experts. The Ministry of Women and Child Development recently placed the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, in the public domain and sought stakeholders' comments till July 14. The Bill is also scheduled...

-Scroll.in Unless the Centre and states act swiftly, the humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen. As India witnesses a record-breaking surge of Covid-19 cases, the Central and state governments have been scrambling to find appropriate responses to handle this health crisis. At a time when the healthcare system is severely strained, many state governments not surprisingly have employed public health or non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the spread of the disease. These interventions...