-TheWire.in Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialize. On March 14, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) uploaded a draft of the National Forest Policy 2018, three decades years after the last such policy. The draft appears to be an attempt to shift the approach towards forestry in India – specifically, from a local community- and ecology-centric approach emphasised in the...

-The Indian Express The Finance Ministry directed smaller PSBs to cut their corporate loan exposure to 25 per cent of their risk-weighted assets over the medium term and focus more on retail lending. Corporate loans corner the lion’s share of rising bad loans in public sector banks while retail loans have a far superior track record when it comes to timely repayment, according to the latest available Reserve Bank of India...

-The Hindu Chief Justice Misra asks why people preferring anonymity are also compelled to part with their personal data to access services. The government has assured the Supreme Court that Aadhaar is not a “fly-by-night effort to score some brownie points” and personal data collected from millions of people is safe from breach in storage facilities barricaded behind five-feet thick walls. Appearing before a Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak...

-The Hindu Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services...

-Newsclick.in Families continue being denied ration and social security pension, due to lack of Aadhaar or failure of biometric authentication. People from 14 states testified to the rampant violations of the Right to Food at a national public hearing on 15 March organised by the Right to Food Campaign at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi. The testimonies spoke of the denials of entitlements — to food, social security pensions and even work...