-The Hindu Sabotaging the Forest Rights Act damages democracy Since 1980, through the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has “diverted for non-forest use” (bureaucratese for destroyed) over 1.5 million hectares of forest. How many Adivasis and forest-dwellers have been evicted by this ‘lawful’ forest destruction? Stripping these forests has yielded thousands of crores of rupees for corporations to which a bulk of these forestlands...

-Financial Express Just ahead of the 2019 general elections dates announcement, the PRIme minister launched the centrally sponsored ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’ (PM-Kisan) scheme of Rs 75,000 crore for small and marginal farm families. On February 24, 2019, from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, he transferred the first installment of Rs 2,000 each (out of `6,000 per annum) into the bank accounts of 1.01 crore farm families, amounting to `2,021 crore....

-The Indian Express Income support under PM-Kisan is only one small step. It must be complemented by large-scale reforms in agri-marketing and trade policies. Just ahead of the announcement of the 2019 general election dates, the PRIme minister launched the centrally sponsored ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’ (PM-Kisan) scheme of Rs 75,000 crore for small and marginal farm families. On February 24, from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, he transferred the first...

-The Hindu Karnataka signs MoU with Akshaya Patra Foundation Bengaluru: The State government appears to have backtracked on its stand that onion and garlic be introduced in mid-day meals served to students. It has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF), a subsidiary of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), despite the latter’s refusal to use the two ingredients. In November last year, the Department of...

-News18.com While India has been able to marginally reduce the infants infected from Diphtheria, Tetanus and Measles, the cases of Tuberculosis, Pneumonia, Pertussis and Diarrhoea have only magnified. Forty years after immunization was introduced for the first time in India, PRIme Minister Narendra Modi addressed representatives from 54 countries at the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) and cited the renamed Mission Indradhanush—it aims to immunize all children under the...