-Down to Earth Lower caste communities are ostracised and denied access to rehabilitation facilities during natural disasters The malpractices of untouchability and caste-based discrimination, although banned in India, continues unabated in several districts of Odisha. During a natural calamity, they turn into a greater menace as the ostracised people are denied access to rehabilitation facilities. Dalit communities Keuta, Kandara and Siara in Puri district, who sell fish to survive, suffered a major financial...

-The Hindu It is time to formulate a wage employment-based national urban livelihood scheme similar to MGNREGS During the pandemic, we have again and again faced the difficult choice of saving lives versus protecting livelihoods. According to the World Economic Outlook report of April, 2021 of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), almost all countries, except China, experienced economic contraction last year. The global GDP shrunk by 3.3%. The contraction in the U.S.,...

-The Hindu Global warming to trigger extreme rain in South India, it says The current global warming trends overall are likely to lead an increase in annual mean precipitation over India, with more severe rains expected over southern India in the coming decades, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report, public on Monday. The planet was irrevocably headed towards warming by 1.5° Celsius over pre-industrial times in the next...

-The Hindu Natural resources have been destroyed in Kutch due to clean energy projects AHMEDABAD: Sangnara, a small village in Kutch, has been trying to save its forests from wind energy companies for the past two years as windmills were being installed on forestland, depriving people of greenery and natural resources. Kutch has been designated as an important wind energy exploitation zone, and in the past few years thousands of windmills have been...

-The Hindu Statement comes after it recently argued against disclosing info related to committee The Centre has denied the very existence of a committee set up to oversee medical oxygen supply during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The statement comes just two weeks after it argued strenuously before the Central Information Commission (CIC) against disclosing information about this committee on the grounds of strategic interests, commercial confidences, intellectual property and Cabinet papers. Last week,...