-The Hindu Waste disposal from other toilets could turn into health and environmental nightmare New Delhi: Over the last year, a government advertisement featuring film actors Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar has been preaching the benefits of the “do gadde” or twin-pit latrines, which would create valuable farm manure from human excreta. “Shauchalaya ka ashirvad,” proclaims Mr. Kumar in the advertisement produced by the Centre’s flagship sanitation scheme Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. This month,...

-The Times of India blog The hyper-patriotic heat over Indo-Pak aerial battles is diminishing. Other issues are getting more attention. The Election Commission has notified polling dates, so its model code of conduct for political parties is in force. This says no new projects or welfare schemes can be announced or implemented before the election. What does this imply for the pre-election PM-Kisan scheme, announced in the budget? Pre-election budgets are usually...

-The Hindu Final document at Nairobi tones down language, lacks timeline. An ambitious resolution piloted by India to phase out single-use plastics by 2025, was watered down at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) that concluded on Friday in Nairobi. At the World Environment Day summit on June 5, 2018 here, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had pledged to eliminate single-use plastics from India by...

-The Indian Express The Investigating Officer, Inspector Sunil Kumar, filed the chargesheet in court on April 17, 2015 and since then, police have met senior officials of the Ministry, sent multiple letters with reminders, but they have not received any “concrete response”. New Delhi: In the Supreme Court last week, Attorney General K K Venugopal, making submissions against a plea seeking review of its December 14, 2018 order that dismissed PILs...

-The Hindu ‘Ensures transparency, checks misuse’ Electoral bonds have been introduced to promote transparency in funding and donation received by political parties, the government told the Supreme Court on Thursday. “They [bonds] can be encashed by an eligible political party only through their accounts with authorised banks. The bonds do not have the name of the donor or the receiving political party and only carry unique hidden alphanumeric serial numbers as an in-built...