-Newsclick.in Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board rejects data provided by the Centre for Holistic Development. More than 140 homeless people in Delhi have died due to the extreme cold so far, highlighting the urgent need for providing shelter to people living on the road. “So far, 145 homeless people in Delhi have died,” Sunil Kumar Aledia, executive director, Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), told Newsclick over the phone on Monday. Backing its claim...

-The Telegraph The police as the arbiters of communication For a country with serious challenges to tackle, the amount of time and energy of government agencies and courts that is now spent on offence-taking and conspiracy-chasing borders on the ludicrous. Through 2021, the police in various parts of the country sought to criminalize news gathering as well as social media expressions, registering first information reports indiscriminately under various sections of the Criminal...

-The Telegraph  'The petitioners can approach local authorities' The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre, Delhi police and the Uttarakhand government on their alleged failure to act against people who had purportedly called for genocide against Muslims at events in Haridwar and Delhi last month. “Heard Mr Kapil Sibal, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners. Issue notice to the respondents. List the matter after 10 days,” a...

-The Tribune In India, there is a concerted campaign to discredit the arhtiya, building the case for bringing in agri-business companies. There is certainly a need to regulate the middlemen, but the American experience shows how the consolidation of the meat industry, leading to market concentration in the hands of a few companies, is making it difficult for livestock farmers to survive. WHILE Indian policy makers and economists haven’t drawn any lessons...

-Newsclick.in Through “nationalised banks-NBFC” deals, the Modi government is trying to achieve what the three farm Laws could not achieve. In colonial times, the peasantry had to borrow from private moneylenders. According to Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee reports, these moneylenders in turn borrowed from commercial banks. But while disbursing credit to the peasants and charging exorbitant interest rates, the money lenders at least bore the whole of the lender’s risk. The banks...