-The Indian Express MPs must not run down a law that promises a more informed citizenry The Right to Information (RTI) Act has undoubtedly been a most empowering legislation for citizens. The law has initiated the vital task of redistributing power in a democratic framework. It is perhaps this paradigm shift in the locus of power that has resulted in consistent efforts by the powerful to denigrate it. The latest attack on...
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Debate: Are Some Suicides More Important Than Others? -Jahnavi Sen
-TheWire.in According to NCRB data for 2014, the suicide rate for ‘housewives’ was more than double that of farmers, though the latter gets far more media attention. What does this really indicate? In 2014, National Crime Records Bureau data showed that 20,148 housewives took then own lives across the country. This amounts to approximately 18% of all suicides that year. A recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly by political scientist Peter...
More »Good news: Mumbai's child sex ratio of 933 at all-time high -Sumitra Deb Roy
-The Times of India The city's child sex ratio reached an all time high in 2015, with 933 girls born per 1,000 boys, significantly ahead of the national average of 918. But several wards of the city bucked the progressive trend to register a worrying gap. As per recently released BMC data, 11of 24 wards registered a dip in the ratio, indicative of a strong bias towards the male child, compared with...
More »Centre can’t shirk responsibility while dealing with drought: Supreme Court -Utkarsh Anand
-The Indian Express The bench also issued directives for updating the drought management manual - published in 2009 — after taking into account rainfall deficit, timely declaration of drought and other factors. New Delhi: RULING THAT “the buck will eventually stop with the Government of India”, the Supreme Court Wednesday directed the Centre to consider drought as a disaster and constitute a national response force along with a consolidated fund within...
More »Foodgrain output to stay below 2013-14 level, predicts agriculture ministry
Till recently agricultural production in the current crop year was expected to be adversely affected by drought situation in more than 10 states, apart from hailstorms and excessive rainfall that happened in March. However, if one were to believe a recent forecast made by the Ministry of Agriculture, the overall foodgrain production in the country this crop year is anticipated to remain almost the same as last year. In 2014-15,...
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