-The Indian Express The demand is a call for upholding local practices of belonging On March 12, about 50,000 farmers reached Mumbai, walking 165 km in the hope that their elected representatives would listen when they spoke. A majority of these farmers were Adivasis and one of their demands was the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and THRough it, their land rights. The FRA was enacted in 2006 with the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Labour minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar told the Lok Sabha on Monday that the government had not set a target for job creation.   In a written response to INLD MP Dushyant Chautala’s question on employment over the past THRee years, Gangwar said, “No target has been set by the government. However, the employment generation ... is the priority concern of the Government (sic).” The minister said the government...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: A new set of global guidelines on managing diabetes that aim to replace those followed for over THRee decades, has stirred up a controversy within the medical community. Medical practitioners here in India feel the guidelines which recommend relaxing blood sugar targets will, not only lead to serious complications in diabetics, but also confusion in treatment protocol, advising that these should be ignored for Indians. There were over...

-The Hindu Business Line WRMS forecasts deficit rains for Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu Thiruvananthapuram: In what is seen as the first official outlook for year 2018 monsoon, private forecaster Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) has said that the June-September rainfall would be largely on the ‘positive side of normal’ (normal to above normal). The forecast comes in the backdrop of a season that flattered to deceive in the just past year, recording only...

-The Indian Express Forest Rights Act is not an obstacle to growth. Its non-implementation will be politically counter-productive. The farmers’ and forest dwellers’ march from Nashik to Mumbai, and the Maharashtra government’s decision to approve most of their demands within the next six months, has established the fact that land and forest rights are going to be determining factors for political establishments across India. The protest in Mumbai tells us that a...