-The Hindu Lender sees ‘considerable downside risk’ from latest COVID wave, says may revise forecast in July The Asian Development Bank has raised its forecast for India’s Growth in 2021-22 to 11%, from 8% earlier, even as it warned that failure to control the resurgence of COVID-19 cases including April’s exponential jump poses a “considerable downside risk to the recovery”. ‘Targeted containment’ In its assessment based on end-March data, the ADB cited this year’s...

Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-The Hindu With logic, and data from unimpeachable sources, former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi’s book debunks the myth around exaggerated fears of Indian Muslim numbers An impartial analysis of Islamophobia in India would reveal that what generated it was not Islam but a sense of political insecurity born out of exaggerated fears of Muslim numbers. These anxieties came to the fore in the early 1900s after the partition of Bengal, the...

The National Food Security Act 2013 guarantees maternity benefit to the tune of Rs. 6,000/- per child by the Central Government for pregnant women and lactating mothers, barring those who are already availing such benefits while being in regular employment with the Central Government or State Governments or Public Sector Undertakings or under other laws. The NFSA 2013 also legally guarantees free meals for every pregnant woman and lactating mother...

-IDROnline.org How did India’s Public Distribution System adapt during COVID-19 and what can other social protection schemes learn from it? Social Protection (SP) broadly refers to a set of policies and programmes aimed at protecting people against poverty, vulnerability, and social exclusion throughout their life. Over the last 15 years, India has witnessed a Growth in rights-based entitlements and systemic reforms to build a more inclusive SP system. These encompass the Mid-Day...