-Economic and Political Weekly  The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to...

-IPS News World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security. From the worst drought in 56 years in the United States Midwest, to the Karnataka’s drought in India, to the protracted drought in the Sahel region of West Africa, we have also seen how in our globalised world the nexus between lack of water and food security in one corner of...

-The Hindu The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood & Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012, was presented in the Lok Sabha by Union Minister of Urban Housing & Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja on Thursday. The Bill, which seeks to protect the rights of vendors and regulate their activity in public areas, has provisions for setting up vending zones where street vendors can sell their products without fear of being fined and...

-The Hindu The country has shown that it is possible to have superior social outcomes at lower per capita incomes and rates of economic growth Bangladesh is very much in the news these days in our country, but for the wrong reasons. In the unfortunate Bangladesh-bashing that seems to have become somewhat of a pastime, we seem to have failed to notice the striking developmental success that it has had in the...

-PTI A bill to protect the rights of street vendors and regulate street vending activities was introduced in the Lok Sabha today amid opposition uproar over coal block allocation. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja. As per the provisions of the Bill, anyone over 14 years can register with the Town...