-Newsclick.in Harassment by loan recovery agents hired by these apps has led to at least 21 suicides across India between 2020 and 2021. Meghna Patel took her first loan early in 2020 from an app called FlyCash, whose ads she had been seeing on Facebook. It was a small amount. Just Rs 500. She had to repay Rs 550, two weeks later. The app even had a borrowing limit of Rs 1,000. Recently,...

-The Tribune Along with better forecasts, we need better monitoring and reporting of actual rainfall, water levels in rivers and incidents of landslides. More timely and location-specific forecasts that would enable the disaster management authorities to take the necessary advance actions would help. Such emergency action plans would follow only if there is a functional, accountable and participatory disaster management mechanism in place. This month’s flood disasters in two states distant from...

-IndiaToday.in The state is experimenting with tea and coffee plantation as part of its attempt to diversify crop Has Chhattisgarh woken up to smell the coffee? For long a preserve of the south, coffee cultivation seems to be traveling north. Things started brewing after a few enterprising farmer entrepreneurs started coffee and tea plantations in the state. The Jashpur district in North Chhattisgarh has a coffee plantation; another was set up on...

-The Hindu Did Kerala and Uttarakhand receive incessant rain in October due to climate change? The story so far: Even as the southwest monsoon began to retreat from the subcontinent, Kerala and Uttarakhand received record rainfall in October. In both these States and others, over the last few years, there have been variations in the pattern and intensity of rainfall. Kerala had seen a severe spell in 2018, which caused havoc. This...

-Newsclick.in And, dipping customs collections show easing of imports, which is destroying Indian producers. It was once famously said that the executive (government) is nothing but a committee to manage the affairs of the ruling class in any society. The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government is a fine example of this truth. The open and brazen way in which it has worked to the advantage of India’s powerful corporate sector has...