-Down to Earth Tribunal calls for doing away with general permissions given to commercial entities to withdraw groundwater The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has called for commercial entities to follow new rules for getting permission to extract groundwater. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) will now form the basis of granting such permissions, the NGT bench said. The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti (water) and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) were ordered by the...

-TheWire.in The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), a legal process that effectively grants projects like mines, dams and industries access to land, water, forests and other environmental resources has been used in India since 1994. On March 12, 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, the environment ministry put out a draft proposal to amend the EIA norms. The last date for public comments is June 30, 2020. The EIA was designed within...

-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...

-The Financial Express Focussing on women’s education, Access to sanitation & potable water, diet rich in proteinaceous foods and biofortification of grains can curb malnutrition President Donald Trump applauded India’s achievements in his address at the crowded Motera stadium. These ranged from religious freedom to reducing poverty to the giant emerging economy. This should have made every Indian feel proud, except that only in the next three days, riots in Delhi made...

-Decoding the Priorities: An Analysis of Union Budget 2020-21, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), February 2020 The publication presents an analysis of the priorities in Union Budget 2020-21, both on public expenditure and resource mobilisation front. It has been divided broadly into five chapters. The first chapter focuses on a host of important aspects under Resource Mobilisation, like domestic tax policy, international taxation policy, financial transparency, and Centre-State...