Remote teaching and learning promoted by Edtech companies as an alternative to physical classrooms, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, may have a sizeable consumer base in our country. However, at the bottom of the pyramid, there are only a few takers of online education. In reality, class and caste-divide, which is more prominent in rural areas, affects access to digital learning. The majority of the school going...

-Scroll.in Limited testing means cases and deaths are going undetected in the state. This year, Uttar Pradesh has reported 1,069 dengue cases to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, the central government’s nodal agency on vector borne diseases. However, it has not reported a single death caused by dengue, data from the agency’s regional office shows. This, despite the fact that more than 50 people have died of fever in the past...

-Hindustan Times Thousands of farmers surrounded a key government building in Haryana chief minister’s bastion of Karnal on Tuesday evening, holding a massive show of strength and intensifying their protest over controversial police action on agitating cultivators last month Karnal/ Chandigarh: Farmers gathered at a mahapanchayat venue in Karnal, and later marched on foot to the mini secretariat building five kilometers away. They jumped over some barricades but didn’t face any serious...

-Scroll.in With growing evidence on the transboundary nature of climate risks, there is an urgent need for a comprehensive regional risk governance framework. In the space of three months in early 2021, two glacial lakes in Uttarakhand burst their banks, with tragic consequences for mountain communities and ecosystems. In February, a glacier lake breach caused flash floods that surged through the Rishiganga River. At least 61 people were killed and around 143...

-Down to Earth blog The ecology of Himachal Pradesh’s hydropower hub is too fragile for such projects “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much about climate change. Today, we have no excuses,” Desmond Tutu, South African theologian, had said. The recent landslides in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district brought back focus on how 40 per cent of the state is geologically ‘highly sensitive’, according to a report...