-Down to Earth Distress among marginal farmers and unavailability of food to migrant labourers has been largely ignored in Union government’s economic stimulus   Agriculture and allied activities are considered ‘essential’ and officially face no restriction to harvest and supply to the market, even in the middle of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. But an agrarian crisis stemming from systemic failures needs to be considered for immediate policy response. The current distress...

-Livemint.com * India must use this moment to redirect government energies towards truly improving public health for all * India has the legal and industrial infrastructure to produce high-quality and affordable medicines, but we have hobbled it. The Indian patent system needs urgent attention BENGALURU: As we enter the tenth week of lockdown, it is hard to get past debates on the effectiveness of India’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The relatively low...

-Newsclick.in Release of the draft during a lockdown, which seeks to fundamentally changes India’s environmental regulations, shows BJP government’s utter disdain for public opinion. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had released a Draft Notification on Environment Impact Assessment 2020 (EIA Notification 2020) on March 12, 2020, on the eve of the world’s largest nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and had called for responses in the next...

-Hindustan Times Mumbai: Alleging that the Centre was diluting environment protection laws to allow construction in ecologically important areas, citizens and environment groups have filed 3,971 objections against the draft environment impact assessment (EIA) notification, 2020 proposed by the Union environment ministry. On March 12, the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) presented the new rules that will replace the 2006 EIA notification, which is presently in force, in...

-Business Standard Farmers allowed to sell 46 fruits and vegetables directly without bringing them to mandis After allowing FPOs to directly procure from farmers, Uttar Pradesh has announced another set of reforms to its Mandi Act. The state joins the long list of domains that have used the Covid-19 crisis to make changes in their APMC rules in order to facilitate direct procurement from farmers. Please click here to read more. ...