-The Telegraph New Delhi: A non-government organisation has come up with a raft of ideas to reform the judicial system, saying unless things were speeded up it would take at least a hundred years to dispose of the current backlog of three crore cases. The suggestions from the Children's Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) came in representations the NGO made to Chief Justice of India (CJI) H.L. Dattu and Union law...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-Economic and Political Weekly Chennai floods show the vulnerabilities that arise from the neglect of urban planning. In the second week of November, flood-marooned people in Chennai had an unlikely Good Samaritan. The cab service provider, Ola. As the city struggled to come to terms with its highest rainfall in 10 years, the cab company pressed in boats from an aquatic adventure outfit and secured the services of professional rowers and fishworkers...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A recent sample survey carried out by the government on the usage of toilets seeks to disprove the notion that access to toilets may not automatically change attitudes of people who prefer defecating in the open. According to NSSO findings, at least 95% of family members in rural areas and around 99% household members in urban areas used toilets, which had access to toilets. The sample...

-Hindustan Times The impact of climate change on India’s agriculture is more evident than ever before, but millions of small and marginal farmers do not have adequate safeguards, said a study released on Friday. The country’s farm sector is considered highly vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns as half of the cropland is dependent on rainfall, drawing around 60% of the farmers to the core of the climate-proofing debate. Climate change increases frequency...