SPRF
CONTEXT Street vendors are an integral, and yet, an overlooked part of India’s urban landscape. Constituting one of the largest segments of self-employed workers, India is estimated to have over four crore people carrying out a diverse range of street vending activities [1]. The Street Vendors Act 2014 identifies urban street vendors as constituting up […]
Authored By – Anushka Negi and Jitendra Bisht Edited By – Kavita Majumdar CONTEXT With just 4% of the world’s freshwater resources and 17% of its population, India is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world [1]. Water supply is becoming scarce due to reasons including, but not limited to, drastically falling water […]
CONTEXT On 21st September 2020, the Rajya Sabha passed two key bills related to reforms in agricultural marketing and trade, amid protests from opposition parties as well as farmer and trade unions across Punjab, Haryana, and several other states. After receiving the assent of the President on 27th September 2020, the Farmers’ Produce Trade […]
CONTEXT The COVID-19 pandemic has created unforeseen challenges in India’s educational landscape. Schools and colleges have switched to remote learning and started online classes and exams. The pattern of education has changed overnight, and digital learning has emerged as the primary alternative. This sudden switch and overdependence on technology has come with its […]
THE NEED FOR PRISON EDUCATION Studies across the world have indicated that education during incarceration has long term benefits for entire societies. In fact, a report in the USA suggested that individuals who participated in any form of educational programmes in prison were 43% less likely to return to jail [1]. This is mostly […]
CONTEXT On the intervening night of June 15-16, Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a violent clash in Ladakh’s Galwan valley. As per the Indian Army, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in action (KIA) while there were unconfirmed casualties on the Chinese side [1] [2]. The violence came on the heels of confrontations in Ladakh’s […]
INTRODUCTION In 2019, the Department of Food and Public Distribution launched the Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS) scheme, more commonly known as the One Nation One Ration Card scheme. The One Nation One Ration Card scheme aims to improve the portability of food distribution, by enabling ration card holders to collect their entitled […]
CONTEXT The ongoing pandemic has led to a strategic shift towards a newly created ‘focal point’, constituting the need to train and equip the otherwise undervalued backbone of the global healthcare workforce – the frontline health workers [1]. It is imperative to point out that at the forefront of the efforts to contain the further […]
ABSTRACT This commentary explores the intervention of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in providing mental healthcare services, through chatbot applications. Mental health chatbots, being inexpensive and easily accessible, are increasingly gaining ground as an alternative to therapists and other mental health professionals. The commentary aims to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of its usage in mitigating mental […]
Across the globe, around a hundred million barrels of oil are in demand each day [1]. It was estimated that in 2020, this number will increase by 825,000. However, in sharp contrast, following the spread of the Novel Coronavirus, the oil demand has instead fallen by 90,000 barrels per day [2]. In fact, global oil […]
CONTEXT On March 28, four days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown till mid-April to halt the spread of Covid-19, chaotic scenes of migrant workers standing in long queues emerged from Delhi’s Anand Vihar Bus Terminal [1]. Numbering in thousands, these were mostly daily wage labourers from Delhi and neighbouring satellite cities […]
In 2017, a landmark Supreme Court judgement declared the right to privacy as being protected as “an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution” [1] [2]. This judgement followed a petition filed in the Supreme […]
Around 600 million people in India face severe water shortage, and according to NITI Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (2018), the situation is predicted to get worse in the next few years. [1] The report states that 21 cities are expected to completely exhaust groundwater resources available to them by 2020. Over the last two […]
The Indian government, as part of its efforts to revamp forest conservation and management, announced two new changes to India’s forest policies in 2018 and 2019. The first of these, the Draft National Forest Policy (NFP) 2018, has been under review since it was first made public in March 2018, and seeks to replace the […]