Carbon Copy A freshly passed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act has created a stir among ecologists, parliamentarians and stakeholders. With several contentious provisions, the amendment reveals an afforestation push where rights and justice take a backseat to commercial interests. This week, amidst a raucous monsoon session, the Indian Parliament saw the passage of several consequential pieces of legislation in quick succession. Among them was the contentious amendment to the Forest Conservation...

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

The Wire In a country like India where inequality is so prominent, a development scheme can come a cropper if it lacks inclusivity. The Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) was launched in 1993 to enable parliamentarians to directly contribute towards meeting the development demands of their constituency or state. Despite many deficiencies plaguing the scheme, it stood out mainly on account of the principles of social justice and its...

Like the fight against poverty and hunger, the progress made by mankind against tuberculosis (TB) in the years up to 2019 has either slowed, stalled, or reversed, and global TB targets are off track due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, although the reported number of people newly diagnosed with TB decreased from 7.1 million to 5.8 million between 2019 and 2020, the number went up to 6.4 million in 2021....

-The Daily Pioneer The MSME sector does not need more laws and regulation but handholding and support in India The importance of the MSME in the economic and social development of the country, especially for developing nations, has been established in various studies conducted by the international institutions. In India, the role of SME is proven by the fact that they contribute about 30 per cent of the GDP and 45 per...