-The Indian Express Mani Shankar Aiyar writes: Planning for withstanding the ingress of COVID-19 requires the full deployment of the mechanisms for district planning envisaged in Article 243 ZD involving all three tiers of the panchayats and the municipalities brought together in the district planning committee An unintended but welcome consequence of the struggle against COVID-19 is that the “confrontational federalism” that has characterised the Centre’s relations with the states, especially those...

-Mongabay.com * The nationwide lockdown has affected the economy of India’s tribal population, which depends highly on the sale of minor forest products. * However, state governments are hoping things will become normal soon as the lockdown norms get relaxed in the coming days. Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel even praised the tribal population in his state for maintaining social distancing properly. * Experts and organisations working with tribal communities demand removal or...

-TheWire.in Details on this fund and on the decision-making process behind the lockdown, which the PMO has decided not to disclose, should have been made public without waiting for RTI requests. The Prime Minister’s Office must have deliberately ignored the will that the parliament had expressed in the RTI Act, and the spirit of the the Rules and Office Memoranda (OM) issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) when it...

-TheWire.in Food rights campaigners urge Arvind Kejriwal to intervene, simplify e-coupon process, set up facilitation desks at all ration shops, food department offices. New Delhi: Despite the Delhi high court’s recent direction urging the Delhi government to ensure that all fair price shops operated during working hours and distributed public distribution system (PDS) grains, a survey has revealed that only 62% are functioning and only half of them are distributing grains. Following...

-TheWire.in/ PTI The Centre on Wednesday relaxed lockdown guidelines enabling states to bring back people stranded at different places across the country. Ranchi: The Jharkhand government on Thursday said it would bring in new guidelines to widen the scope of work under the MGNREGA to provide jobs to migrant workers returning homes, and sent buses to West Bengal for bringing back people of the state stranded there due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Chief...