-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Dehradun: Maletha village in Tehri Garhwal is very angry. Men, women and children sit on the road in dharna, demanding that a stone crushing company grandly called Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram be evicted from their village. The villagers’ problems began in February 2014 when two stone crushers arrived in Maletha with their machines. Their operations created an ear-splitting noise and belched clouds of dust that settled on crops and orchards. In August, another...

-The Indian Express It can be strengthened —by the collection of taxes at the local level, for instance. Democratic decentralisation, conceived two decades ago, seems to be a lost cause at first sight. Beyond lip service by politicians, neither panchayats nor municipalities have captured the public imagination as viable, responsive, accountable institutions of government. Just after the Karnataka panchayat elections, which ended on June 2, the continued disempowerment of local governments is...

-News Wing Daltonganj: The world may have become a global village; India too may have reached the Mars,but the lifestyle of Kharwars, the tribal people living in difficult terrains of Palamau forest who like to boast of being the kin of famous duo Nilambar-Pitambar has crawled just by an inch—they have taken to farming.This too, for the last two years. While by nature the Kharwars are fighter tribes and not adapt to...

-Tehelka The report also says that the reason behind these ailments is mostly centred around the conditions in which these workers do their jobs. According to report published by ASSOCHAM, an alarming 76% of e-waste workers suffer from respiratory ailments like breathing problems, irritation, coughing, chocking and tremors. The report also says that the reason behind these ailments is mostly centred around the conditions in which these workers do their jobs. All recyclers...