-Newsclick.in The labourers from Dang migrate every year to Bardoli—a hub of sugar mills—where they are caught in a system of advance payments that bind them to the workPLAce for the duration of the season. Dang, a district in southern Gujarat, is witnessing one of the largest labour movements in its recent history after the tribal sugarcane harvesters of the district decided not to migrate to Bardoli and other neighbouring areas. Bardoli,...

-The Hindu Fibreglass avatar used to cut pollution GUWAHATI: Goddess Durga has a fibreglass ‘avatar’ in Mizoram and it has much to do with slaying the demon of ecological degradation. There are very few temples in Mizoram, where 87% of the population is Christian. Of the 13 that are managed by the Central Gorkha Mandir Committee, five are in Aizawl. Until about a decade ago, the Durga Puja celebration in these temples was similar...

-The Hindu With a new investigation of Delhi tap water showing that it is not safe to drink, the Centre has announced PLAns to test the quality of piped drinking water in the states and release Swachh Pani rankings early next month. It is also trying to build a consensus to make quality standards for tap water a mandatory requirement. A team from the Bureau of Indian Standards has been sent to...

-The Hindu Business Line A dispersed pattern of urbanisation leads to sprawl with higher motorisation and pollution. A new urban vision is needed India’s demographic dividend cannot be realised if young entrants to the labour force as well as potential migrants from agriculture do not gain new livelihoods. Hastening of the structural transformation brings with it three mega-challenges for policy-makers: employment of migrants; growing urbanisation; and ensuring better education and vocational training...

-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...