-The Hindu Amid growing demands for Statehood, Committee on Home Affairs wraps 6-day visit Amid growing demands for the restoration of Statehood for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh have been visited by members of as many as three Parliamentary Committees in the past 10 days. These visits by Parliamentary panels not only come two years after the bifurcation of J&K and the removal of its special status...

-TheWire.in Improved data collection and reporting, appropriate protective gear and better government policies can all help address the problems of sanitation workers. Over the last seven or eight years in India, sanitation has been a key focus of government programmes. Several thousand crores have been spent on the issue and there has been remarkable progress in terms of toilets constructed. The sanitation problem has also received ample attention in the development sector,...

-TheWire.in It has been proven time and again that large 'development' projects, involving the blasting of fragile hills and constraining the flow of rivers, cause huge loss of lives and livelihoods in the Himalayan region. Two big landslides in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh which made national headlines have re-emphasised the need for ecologically protective development in geologically fragile and vulnerable hills. On August 11, a massive landslide on National Highway 5,...

-Scroll.in A caste census would truly enable India to understand the demographic grammars through which caste is lived and experienced in everyday terms. At the outset, the recently released data from the 2020 United States census is historic for more reasons than one. The census findings on race and ethnicity, which are particularly significant, indicate that for the first time in America’s history, the White population, in absolute numbers, has declined. Between...

-The Hindu In a State where hydro power projects, dams and construction activities are increasing, landslides too are becoming common. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the benefits of the projects and the concerns of the people in a fragile Himalayan region It was a relatively warm monsoon afternoon on July 25 when Arjun Devi, 65, was sitting outside her house, legs stretched out. Her house is located in the middle of an apple...