-Newsclick.in In the lack of specific guidelines and a central monitoring mechanism, the process to review forest rights claims has varied across states. With the Modi government abdicating its responsibility of playing a coordinating role in reviewing settlements of claims on forest land, large number of rejections, in many instances above 50%, are being reported from various states. The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) is yet to set any specific guidelines...

-The United Nations Refugee Agency GENEVA / NEW YORK – A joint report released today by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), shows that in many countries women can face discrimination which obstructs or hinders their ability to register births, exposing their children to the risk of becoming stateless. The latest analysis in the report “Sex Discrimination in Birth Registration” found that such barriers may exist...

-Newsclick.in Prices of basic sources of protein like meat, eggs, pulses, and cooking oils have zoomed up, as has the cost of cooking gas. Prices of some essential food items have jumped up steadily over the past few months causing devastation of nutritional levels of families and denting already stressed budgets. Adding to this misery is the inordinate hikes in cooking gas prices which have sky-rocketed by 46% since subsidies were all...

-IndiaSpend.com Laws governing schools should be easy enough for students to make sense of them. As states prepare to reform education laws under the National Education Policy, our analysis shows that most states’ education laws are verbose, restrictive and incomprehensible even to college graduates New Delhi: On April 8, 2021, union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal launched the 'Students' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement through Quality Education' (Sarthaq) plan as the first step toward...

-The Hindu Business Line The development economist, now part of Tamil Nadu’s Economic Advisory Council, says that public expenditure on health is just 0.6 per cent of the state domestic product, one of the lowest ratios among Indian states * Universal quality education, health care and social security are still distant goals * A well-designed system of emergency cash transfers would be quite useful in this situation of recurrent crises, which may last...