-Down to Earth The BJP-led government's change of heart for big-ticket rural programmes says a lot about its dwindling political fortune India's current political season has a nostalgic tint. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has apparently met party leaders to kickstart a campaign against the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’S) overt efforts to softly kill the erstwhile government’s flagship programmes. Particularly, the NDA government’s political decisions to not pursue the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

-Frontline.in An initiative focussed on Kerala’s development experience exposes a worrying trend of rising inequality and proposes a strategy for sustainable and equitable growth. THE fourth international Congress on Kerala Studies, organised by the A.K.G. Centre for Study and Research in Thiruvananthapuram on January 9-10, has generated much interest for its focus on a worrying new trend in Kerala’s development experience: rising inequality and marginalisation of large sections of people despite...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Green cover and wildlife population in Jharkhand’s sanctuaries are under threat from unchecked stone quarries, tree felling and construction work in the buffer zones of the wildlife reserves in the state. With the state government yet to send proposals to the Centre to declare 10 of the 11 wildlife sanctuaries as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs), the threat has increased, say conversationalists and wildlife experts. Until now, only the Dalma wildlife...

-The Hindu In order to have a chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need suitable technologies to make low-carbon transitions in development right away Now that the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) meet is long over, countries need to concentrate on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which need to peak soon and go to zero by mid-century if there is to be a chance of preventing average...

-Business Standard To be announced in next few weeks and in coming Budget To widen its rural push and to counter the Opposition's allegation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government is anti-poor, the Centre is mulling multiple interventions which would include expanding the role of women-driven self help groups (SHGs) and promoting self-employment for rural youth. Some official said the new crop insurance scheme, approved by the Cabinet recently is part of...