-The Hindu In the absence of scientific planning and implementation, measures like Jal Shakti Abhiyan may not be successful Following the massive water crisis across India in the summer of 2019, the Central government hurriedly launched the Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA), a time-bound, mission-mode water conservation campaign to be carried out in two phases, across the 255 districts having critical and over-exploited groundwater levels. This campaign, however, was not intended to be...

-Scroll.in A poorly-functioning justice system costs India 9% of its GDP each year, according to one estimate. A new report paints a grim picture of the state of India’s justice system. Called the India Justice Report 2019, it ranks states by their performance in four aspects: police, the state judiciary, prisons and legal aid. The report is an initiative of Tata Trusts, a philanthropic organisation, undertaken in partnership with several civil society organisations...

-The Hindu Stress on trained cleaners, protective gear New Delhi: Concerned by the incidents of workers dying while cleaning sewers and septic Tanks, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has asked all States and Union Territories to set up emergency response sanitation units (ERSU), which would include trained cleaners wearing protective gear. In letters to all Chief Secretaries on July 12, Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra wrote: “The...

-The Hindu With growing environmental distress, policymakers cannot shy away from adopting best eco-management practices In a report last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) called the Chennai floods of 2015 a “man made disaster”, a pointer to how the encroachment of lakes and river floodplains has driven India’s sixth largest city to this ineluctable situation. The Chennai floods are a symbol of consistent human failings and poor urban...

-The Indian Express Jalyukta Shivar is the flagship programme of the Maharashtra government launched in December 2014. It aims to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his latest Mann ki Baat, emphasised on the need for dedicated efforts towards water conservation and launched ‘Jal Shakti, Jan Shakti’. Maharashtra has experienced drought four times in the last five years and the scarcity of water is set...