-TheWire.in The perception has grown over the years that those without any shelter are somehow getting a free ride. Headlines across several newspapers on the afternoon of July 3 declared “homeless and beggars should work; everything cannot be provided to them by the state”. This statement was attributed to the Bombay high court bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S. Kulkarni during its hearing of a public interest litigation...

-Newsclick.in A new ecological social contract may emerge if the Save Buxwaha Forest movement attains its objectives. They say diamonds are forever. So is the ecological damage diamond mines cause, say environmental activists protesting against the proposed diamond mine in Madhya Pradesh’s Buxwaha forest. Blood or Conflict Diamonds is a term used for organised crime networks in African countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola etc, where the money from diamond...

-The Hindu A simple reading of U.P.’s draft population control law is that it will grossly impinge on the right to reproductive freedom On Sunday, the government of Uttar Pradesh released a “Population Policy” in which it stated its intention to bring the gross fertility rate in the State down from the existing 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026. To achieve this, the government says it will consider the enactment of a new...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-Hindustan Times The Union health ministry has still not classified the Delta plus variant as a ‘variant of concern’. Last week, NITI Aayog’s Dr VK Paul said the way forward is to watch for the variant’s potential presence in the country and take appropriate public health responses. As India continues to fight the second wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, it is also struggling to control the increasing spread of the...