-The Hindu Business Line Drought conditions in peninsular India highlight familiar policy failures Recent BusinessLine reports have highlighted the harrowing conditions of water scarcity in peninsular India, with the monsoon still about three months away. Scientists and specialists have observed that 40 per cent of the country’s area is reeling under drought, of which 16-17 per cent is severe. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Gujarat are in a...

-Hindustan Times According to locals, around 100 cases of dengue were reported from the village last year. However, in the absence of any government hospital and medical dispensary, the residents struggled. In 2017, Kadipur in north Delhi, adopted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from North-East Delhi Manoj Tiwari, had hit the headlines after it became the FIRst village in the capital to get “free wi-fi”. However, it is still struggling to...

-Mongabay.com * Uttarakhand has vast water resources and is a lifeline for millions of people living in downstream areas. However, many areas in the state are facing a water shortage. * The hill state is going to polls in the FIRst phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on April 11. In some constituencies, voters, dissatisfied with authorities for failing to provide water facilities, aim to register their protests, by boycotting the...

-CitizenMatters.in The National  Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 1266 out of 1279 candidates who are contesting the Lok Sabha Phase I. Out of the 1266 the candidates, 213 (17%) have declared criminal cases against themselves. 146 candidates have records of serious criminal cases, out of which 10 have declared cases related to murder. 401 of them are crorepati candidates. There are 13 candidates...

-The Indian Express Congress manifesto should have promised better implementation of MGNREGA instead of another scheme In its previous ruling stint in New Delhi, the Congress’s flagship social welfare programme was MGNREGA, which provides 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. For its next shot at power, the grand old party is promising to implement a...