-The Indian Express The Indian Express has found several cases of the pre-Matric scholarship being illegally diverted by middlemen in Bihar as well. Gaya, Saharsa: The Scholarship scam, in which money meant for poor minority students is siphoned off, is not limited to Jharkhand, but has crossed state borders. Investigating entries, district by district, on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and matching them with beneficiary bank accounts in the Public Finance Management System...

-The Indian Express Twenty-six villages in Pardi taluka fall under the Kaprada Assembly seat. Tarmaliya, with around 700 voters, is located in the most interior parts of the constituency. Rajkot, Surat: AROUND 40 students at Tarmaliya village in Pardi taluka of Valsad district, which falls in Kaprada Assembly constituency, boycotted the by-elections Tuesday for want of a mobile tower. In the absence of a mobile tower, the students claimed, they had to...

-The Indian Express A collective of NREGA women activists discovers its political voice. As Jean Dreze recently observed, one of the key ideas behind NREGA was that it would serve as a platform for increasing the overall political capacities of workers. It was hoped that people would organise themselves to collectively demand work and, in the process, learn about other legal and constitutional provisions. While learning about the latter has been patchy,...

-Newsclick.in An assessment by the Environics trust and the Mineral Inheritors Rights Association shows that not even a single company qualifies the fit and proper person test often used by international agencies as a benchmark for a place in the bidding process of natural resources. For the first time in five decades, India’s coal reserves are up for grabs to private sector bidders. The auction for 38 coal blocks is currently underway....

-Down to Earth Sharad Chandra, director, flood forecast monitoring division, Central Water Commission, spoke to DTE on increasing instances of urban flooding   Urban flooding is increasingly becoming a common occurrence in India, the latest victim being Hyderabad. The city received unusually heavy rainfall October 13-14, 2020, due to a deep depression that developed in the Bay of Bengal. Heavy damage to property, roads and human lives were reported. Experts have argued that...