-The Telegraph ‘Ill-timed, improper’ amendment notified by Centre a bid by ruling party to take ‘undue advantage’, says former economic affairs secretary New Delhi: Former Union economic affairs secretary E.A.S. Sarma has asked the Election Commission of India to prevent the fresh sale of electoral bonds, as allowed under an amendment notified by the Centre on Monday that he described as “ill-timed, improper” and as a bid by the ruling party to...

-The Hindu It justifies the ‘intelligible differentia’ between Scheduled Castes practising Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism and those practising other religions The affidavit filed by the Union government before the Supreme Court Bench hearing the case for the inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims on the list of Scheduled Castes contradicts itself at several junctures, leading to a lack of clarity on its arguments defending the current criteria for determining which communities...

-The Hindu The scientists in the institute have identified a few locations in the higher reaches of Uttarakhand for “densification” of seismometers and river gauges to take the total number to 100 from 60. The National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has begun field studies to put in place an early-warning system in the Himalayan States against major and sudden floods, rockslides, landslips, glacier lake...

-The Telegraph A system without any steering control An essential characteristic of modern capitalism is that the living conditions of millions of people are determined by the whims and caprices of a handful of financial speculators; indeed, that is what ‘leaving things to the market’ really entails. Consider what is happening in India today. There is a massive outflow of finance from the country because of which the rupee is depreciating &NBSp;vis-à-vis...

-Down to Earth The United Nations declared 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration In this Anthropocene era, human interference can be seen in every component of Earth’s ecosystem. Due to such human-mediated changes, the loss of freshwater habitats such as lakes, ponds and wetlands, as well as their aquatic biodiversity and water quality are becoming a major concern.&NBSp; Freshwater ecosystems are of enormous ecological importance and human need (such as drinking water and...