-The Hindu Manifesto includes repealing AFSPA. Targeting the Narendra Modi government for a 45-year high in unemployment figures, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) in its manifesto, released on Thursday in Delhi, said the “right to work” should be enshrined in the Constitution and there should be a provision of allowance for those without jobs. The party’s campaign song too captures the party’s accusation with lyrics that say “Aab ki baar, Modi...

-The Hindu Poor people are running from pillar to post as the Aadhaar payment bridge routinely obstructs their welfare benefits Perhaps you will remember “l’affaire Airtel” — the mass diversion of LPG subsidies to Airtel wallets that came to light in 2017. Many of the wallets were unwanted, or even unknown to the recipients. Those affected, fortunately, included millions of middle-class Airtel customers who protested when the goof-up emerged. The subsidy money...

-Livemint.com * Nearly 67% children in Singhbhum are underweight, the highest in India. More than half are stunted and a third suffer from wasting * In Jharkhand, malnutrition is still an alien concept, and the lack of drinking water, ration or electricity supercedes need for healthcare Singhbhum: In the waiting room of a hospital ward in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, Mukul Kalandiya is carefully holding something that from a distance looks like a...

-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-The Hindu MACHILIPATNAM (Andhra Oradesh): A group of 10 unsung volunteers has helped almost 2,000 fellow Yanadi tribal people to enrol as voters, enabling them to exercise their right to franchise in the general elections 2019. A nomadic tribe, the Yanadi in Krishna district have constantly been on the move in search of livelihood opportunities from one season to the next. With a large number of families living in the mangrove forests...