-Hindustan Times On Monday, the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) held a meeting with stakeholders of these villages to discuss the policy provisions before it is notified. The Centre is in the process of finalising its Green Development Area (GDA) policy to allow planned development, including the permission to construct farmhouses and educational institutions, and conduct commercial activities in 88 greenbelt areas and villages with a large number of farmhouses. The...

-The Telegraph We have raised concerns to Government of India that this seems to really go beyond simply random acts of violence: Balakrishnan Rajagopal Before the latest punitive demolition by the Uttar Pradesh government in Allahabad this month, three United Nations special rapporteurs had written to the Centre criticising similar actions targeting Muslims after communal clashes in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi. This was confirmed by one of the special rapporteurs, Balakrishnan Rajagopal...

-Newsclick.in The case study of Narela shows that informal workers exist in a perpetual cycle of precariousness, distress and displacement in a megacity. The case study of Narela shows that informal workers exist in a perpetual cycle of precariousness, distress and displacement in a megacity. While this cycle could be broken through interventions in the realms of social provisioning and legislative framework, the State’s policies instead seem to be working towards strengthening...

Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...

-Scroll.in The city urgently needs formalised, standardised spaces for waste work. September was the peak of monsoons in India. It rained incessantly. Women from the waste picker community in a slum in North Delhi’s Wazirabad were been in a fix. Their homes, which are also their workspaces, were inundated with water. Their husbands and many of the women themselves collect, sort and segregate waste. They are also involved in recycling and reselling it. The...