-Newslaundry.com The state’s River Training Policy appears designed to allow near unfettered mining of sand and boulders by private contractors, bypassing green clearance and scientific assessment. In November 2020, a few months before floods ravaged Uttarakhand, the deputy collector of Purnagiri in Tanakpur district announced an open auction of tenders to desilt the riverbed in Champawat’s villages. Tenders for government work usually seek the lowest bidder, the contractor willing to do the job...

-The Hindu Livelihood rights of fishers should be protected, they appeal to CM Chennai: Environmental groups, climate activists, educationists, fishers and a number of citizens have written to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin expressing concern over the ‘Project Blue’ component of Singara Chennai 2.0 proposed by the Greater Chennai Corporation. In their letter, 65 eminent personalities said the project should recognise and protect livelihood rights of fishers. They also pointed out that the similar...

-TheWire.in The COVID-19 has increased risks for children, especially those from vulnerable communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed 100 million more into poverty, says a recent UN report. In our own backyard, what about India’s 454 million internal economic migrants, who constitute 37% of the total population? How many of them are youth and women? On June 10, the International Labour Organisation and UNICEF jointly surmised that 160 million children are in child...

-IndiaSpend.com India urgently needs a countrywide campaign against child labour and early marriage to protect its children from the economic and social consequences of Covid-19 lockdowns and loss of caregivers, say child welfare workers Jaipur: A six-month old who was touched inappropriately by her father while they were stuck at home during the Covid-19 lockdown. A 14-year-old who might not be able to go back to school as his father, the family's...

-Business Standard How support for left and right-leaning parties is changing in social composition Some decades back the typical voting pattern in many democracies used to be that the rich and upper middle classes used to vote in general for right-leaning parties, while the relatively poor voted for left-leaning parties. But in recent decades this pattern has been shifting: many of the professional or more educated voters in some of those countries...