-CivilSocietyOnline.com New Delhi: The 100-day Accountability Yatra across Rajasthan led by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has had an impact. The state government has issued orders to re-verify all one million pensions that had been stopped, including the 688,875 pensions that had been cancelled. From December 2015 to March this year the yatra had travelled to 33 districts in Rajasthan to assess how government schemes were functioning, find out people’s grievances...

-Frontline A noteworthy study that provides much-needed insights into the nature and severity of the farm crisis in Punjab. There have been many studies on agrarian distress and farmer suicides in different parts of India in the last decade, including in Punjab. Most of the studies focus on a profile of the victims, mostly landowning farmers, and reasons thereof, with a sample of such farmers. In this context, this book makes a...

-The Hindu Court says the practice is a disgrace for the Capital; ‘more shocking that a post-graduate is engaged in the odd job’ The Delhi High Court was left “shocked and disquieted” on Wednesday when a report furnished by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) showed that thousands of people, including a post-graduate, were working as manual scavengers in the national Capital. Factual position The factual position revealed before a Bench headed by...

-The Hindu 48 % of all farmers’ suicides were of those below 35 while it was 57 % for agricultural labourers, says study. A recent study by the Indian Council for Social Science Research of the growing number of farmers’ suicides in Punjab has revealed that the agrarian crisis is hitting farmers and labourers below the age of 35 the hardest. “Nearly 48.6 per cent of farmers who have committed suicide in Punjab...

-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...