Equity

A large section of the population living in the Ganga river basin still depends on the river for daily use activities and livelihood. Hence, the cleaning of the Ganga river’s water and making it safe for use remains a major goal for policymakers. Towards this end, the Namami Gange Clean-up programme was launched with a budget of Rs 20,000 crore during the period 2015–2020. However, the National Green Tribunal stated in 2017 that “not a single drop of river Ganga has been cleaned so far.”

Panchayats have been the core of India's rural governance even before they received the constitutional mandate through the 73rd constitutional amendment in 1992, forming the basis of decentralization in the country. There are 2.5 lakh gram panchayats; over 6 lakhs villages; around 4500 urban local bodies and 4000 census towns in the country.

India is the second largest tea producer in the world, with production at 1.2 million metric tons in 2014.

A crowd of people jostling by the ticket counter at Jhansi railway station in Uttar Pradesh; men and women, some with families in tow, boarding trains to Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and other big cities. These are common sights during the summer months at Jhansi, a major town and railway junction. People from rural areas of the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh routinely travel to cities and towns in search of jobs and livelihoods.

NGT bans granting general permissions for groundwater extraction to commercial entities

Salmora in Majuli river island in Assam is not any ordinary village. Located on the southeastern corner of the island, surrounded by the mighty Brahmaputra on three sides, this village is remarkable in many ways. One of the largest Kumar (potter) villages in Assam, Salmora’s pottery is characterized by two unique features: it is entirely handcrafted, without any use of potter’s wheel; second, and this might surprise many, the pottery economy at Salmora is largely a barter economy.

Through no fault of their own, migrants were forced to leave the cities after the government imposed a Covid-19 induced national lockdown in late March. After losing their work, fearing they would run out of cash and food they trudged back along with their families to the villages in search of humanity, food, and a place to live.

Uttarakhand’s rural areas are marked by massive outflux of people and it is believed that rural migration may alter the state’s political geography. A comparison between the census data of 2001 and 2011 indicates a very slow decadal growth of population in most of the mountain districts of the state with Almora and Pauri Garhwal showing an absolute decline in the population.

As per the findings of an NREGA tracker launched by the People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) the lockdown saw a record spike in jobs under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).