-The Business Standard Bhubaneswar: A week before presenting an affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Union government could have diluted its interpretation of the Forest Rights Act, if sources are to be believed. The move could have provided Vedanta an advantage in arguing its case for bauxite mining in the tribal area of Odisha’s Niyamgiri hills. But, sources say, the government might say mining should not be allowed in Vedanta’s case, as...

-Medianama.com Note: Following this report, other publications and civil society organizations are providing more context on this development. We’ve curating read-worthy updates here as a followup to this post. Important: CERT-IN’s Gulshan Rai has said that blocks have been implemented on the basis of an order issued by a Court in Gwalior, according to a report from Livemint. Hence, DoT is only implementing the Court’s instructions. Earlier today: India’s Department of Telecommunications yesterday...

-Pratirodh.com Speaking to an enthralled audience of 1,500 students and faculty at IIT (Delhi) , Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said that the idea of the National Food Security Bill was “a matter of appreciation and support”, and that the tabling of the Bill in Parliament was in itself a big achievement.  However, he also drew attention to various shortcomings of the Bill and argued for it to be strengthened, particularly in...

-The Hindu Koynanagar (Maharashtra): First, a dam, then an earthquake and finally a tiger reserve — families in Satara district’s Koyna have been displaced thrice in one generation. In 1960, the people had to move, paving the way for the Koyna dam; in 1967 following the earthquake and then for the Koyna tiger reserve in 1985, says Jagannath Vibhute, an activist of the Shramik Mukti Dal and one of the many...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Mamata Banerjee was staring at her darkest night in power after the chief minister shunted out police commissioner R.K. Pachnanda for ignoring the ruling party’s diktats and earned a damning rebuke from the governor. A crackdown that netted several Trinamul supporters and brought the police within striking distance of bigger fish during investigations into the murder of sub-inspector Tapas Chowdhury was said to be the immediate trigger for the...