-The Telegraph The slump in the GDP and the pain ahead The -23.9 per cent shrinkage in the April-June GDP is not a surprise as nearly half the period witnessed a national lockdown. It’s also not surprising that this loss is the world’s steepest for India’s lockdown was the most stringent and the accompanying fiscal policy response the weakest. But the quarter per cent slump did surprise most analysts who have since...

-The Hindu Some members furthering an agenda that isn’t in public interest, they say. A group of 40 scientists, environmentalists and ecologists have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding a halt to the Chardham Road construction work and that the recommendation of environmentalist Ravi Chopra, who heads a Supreme Court-appointed committee to advise on the sustainable execution of the project, be heeded. The Chardham Project (CP) is an ambitious attempt by the...

-Down to Earth Inspector General of Forests AK Mohanty sent letter to all states, alleging discrepancies About 70 per cent data on compensatory afforestation was “incorrect or incomplete”, according to a letter Inspector General of Forest, AK Mohanty. The letter, dated August 10, 2020, was sent to principal secretaries for forests of all states and Union territories. The data in question was for work done under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 and...

-The Hindu Business Line In Himachal Pradesh, the scheme comes as a breather to those who lost their jobs Nand Lal was working in an electronics company at Parwanoo, an industrial town in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh, when the first lockdown was announced, in March. He had no choice but to come back to Surah, his village in the Murhag panchayat of Mandi district. Since then, he has already worked for 56...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...