-The Hindu Petitioners asked to file response New Delhi: The government on Tuesday handed over a status report to the Supreme Court on the progress in the process of appointment to the Central Information Commission (CIC) even as PIL petitioners alleged that the procedure followed was arbitrary. A three-judge Bench, led by Justice A.K. Sikri, took the status report on record and ordered that a copy be handed over to RTI activists-petitioners Anjali...

-The Hindu Students seeking 80% hike in stipends New Delhi: With hundreds of student-researchers in several institutions across the country picketing for a hike in fellowships, two senior officials said that a decision should be out by the first week of February and the hikes could range from 25-50%. On January 16 about 2,000 students and researchers, including from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the labs of the Council of Scientific &...

-The Hindu Tackling drought must be the immediate priority for administrators across the country The coming elections to the Lok Sabha, crucial to the future of our democracy, our pluralism, our federalism, are only a few weeks away. But something else, something urgent, something is already upon us. And something that is going to coincide with the elections. A drought. The rains have failed us. Nothing new, one might say. True, except that the...

-The Hindu The new CRZ notification of 2018 now reads as a rejection of science and the anticipated impacts from climate change In late December, the government approved the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018, which had been earlier circulated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The CRZ consists of designated areas along the coast that are regulated by the government. The government introduced the new CRZ...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Eyeing economic gains through ecological work, non-profit organisation Pradan, along with Chhattisgarh government, has launched a watershed project in the state to enhance the income of 1 lakh small and marginal farmers, of whom over 40 per cent belong to Scheduled Tribes. A watershed is a chunk of a land that drains out at a common point. The watershed development approach takes a comprehensive account of the people, land,...