-Down to Earth The Union government's claim about being on track to double farmers' income sounds hollow as it has not even spent the allocated budget for agrarian schemes in three of the past five years  On February 28, 2016 Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to double farmers’ income by 2022-23—his gift to the country in its 75th year of independence. In the six years since then, the Union government has not...

With the release of a UNDESA report on the World Population Day this year i.e., July 11, once again the debate on who's responsible for the population growth in India has resurfaced. Titled World Population Prospects 2022, the report states that the global population is expected to touch 8 billion on November 15, 2022, and India is projected to exceed China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.  As soon as...

-Article-14.com The arrests and continued incarceration of fact-checker Mohammad Zubair, political activist Javed Mohammed and the exoneration of 121 Adivasis accused of terrorism are the latest evidence of how the State adopts extra legal methods of dealing with ‘inconvenient citizens’—including journalists, dissidents, activists or the poorest Indians—to push official narratives of conspiracy and terrorism. The common threads: manipulation or egregious misinterpretation of laws, changing accusations, unknown or untraceable complainants and the...

-The Hindu State government says ₹5 lakh compensation for each of the over 3,700 victims had been disbursed The Kerala government on July 18 informed the Supreme Court that it has compensated 98% of the endosulfan pesticide exposure victims. Appearing before a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, advocate Nishe Rajen Shanker, for Kerala, said the ₹5 lakh compensation for each of the over 3,700 victims had been disbursed. Verification was going on...

-The Telegraph Twitter is making journalism lazy Some sixteen years after the micro-blogging site was created,Twitter occupies more mind space on an hourly basis than its social media rivals. It is currently most used for news breaks in times of conflict,revolution or negotiation and for direct communication by politicians and governments. The rest of the time it offers opinion-mongering by journalists and the public at large and becomes a platform for journalists and...