-Down to Earth National Green Tribunal’s 2019 order asking states to identify, protect and restore water bodies underlines the urgency to save them The nationwide lockdown imposed to break the spread of the novel coronavirus disease spread in India brought into light a new, pleasant discovery — improvement in quality of several water bodies and their catchments as a host of industrial activities halted. There is a need to restore and create more...

-The Hindu True self-reliance won’t come from relentless industrialisation, but from localisation and decentralisation, as demonstrated by these remarkable stories of empowered rural communities Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using...

-Vikalp.ind.in During the late 1950s when villages near the Kyasanur Forest in Karnataka started to become crowded, farmers began to clear the forest to find new land for agriculture as well as for construction of houses and roads. This brought them to close contact with the primates in the forest. When Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD) outbreak took place among monkeys, the virus did not take much time to jump species and...

-Livemint.com * India must use this moment to redirect government energies towards truly improving public health for all * India has the legal and industrial infrastructure to produce high-quality and affordable medicines, but we have hobbled it. The Indian patent system needs urgent attention BENGALURU: As we enter the tenth week of lockdown, it is hard to get past debates on the effectiveness of India’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The relatively low...

-TheWire.in In an op-ed, the IT services billionaire has said that diluting "already lax laws" will exacerbate conditions of low-wage earners. New Delhi: IT services firm Wipro founder Azim Premji on Saturday said he was shocked to learn of recent decisions taken by various state governments to weaken labour laws. In an op-ed in the Economic Times, the Indian billionaire argued that the dilution of “already lax laws” would not boost economic activity. “This...