-Hindustan Times If Indian cities have become successful in turning away migrants, we should see that as the first sign of their demise, not their dynamism. “Stop migration into cities.” These were the words of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during last week’s budget speech, even as she — confusingly — called urbanization an “opportunity rather than a challenge.” A call to stop rural-urban migration should alarm, but not surprise us. The FM’s statement...

-The Hindu Initiatives by India discussed New Delhi: The United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change, Luis Alfonso de Alba, met Union Environment and Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar and discussed India’s initiatives to meet its climate commitments. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in September, Mr. de Alba, appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as his climate envoy, is visiting several countries and urging leaders and businessmen to do...

-The Hindu Re-verification would have caused a lot of misery, says AAMSU GUWAHATI: Various organisations in Assam welcomed the Supreme Court’s order extending the deadline for publishing the final NRC to August 31 and turning down the request of the Centre and Assam government to conduct 20% sample re-verification of listed names in the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the other districts on Tuesday. In a joint statement, the Assam State Jamiat...

-The Hindu Water conservationist Rajendra Singh says it will also take away the rights of States and communities over rivers Belagavi (Karnataka): Water conservationist Rajendra Singh has criticised the Draft River Basin Management Bill, 2018, and said it aims to reduce river water to a commodity that can be traded. He added that the Bill would also take away the rights of States and communities over rivers. “The newly-formed Jal Shakti Ministry has...

-The Hindu An analysis of the NITI Aayog’s ‘Healthy States, Progressive India’ report released on June 25 shows that the usage of estimated figures in PLAce of reported numbers, to calculate certain health indicators, has adversely impacted the final index score of certain States while boosting that of others. Skewed result The report had used an estimated number of births and deliveries to calculate two key health outcome indicators — “full immunisation coverage”...