Dear Reader,

As the ill effects of climate change increasingly become a living reality, greening the economy is an essential priority for governments if we have to arrest and roll back the regressive effects of environmental atrophy.

Down To Earth analyses the Union Budget for 2022-23, tabled in Parliament by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week, and finds several aspects that go towards creating a greener and sustainable economy - especially the focus on energy transition and climate action. However, it cautions that its efficacy will depend upon commitment, speed, and the scale of implementation.

Calling it a “paradigm shift”, Swarajya lauds the tabling of the Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework (OOMF) for the fourth consecutive year, along with the Union Budget, and argues that this marks a move towards institutionalising the measuring of the real end-results of the government’s spending.

Mukkulam and surrounding villages in the Virudhunagar District of Tamil Nadu have seen an abnormal number of cases of kidney failure for ten years now. The villagers and local activists contend that the biomedical waste disposal unit in the locality is the cause of their anguish. The News Minute investigates.

With the Union government agreeing to re-examine the issue of ‘marital rape’, The Probe debates the issues, the concerns and the need for an enlarged public discourse.

And, does India need an Indian Health Service, on the lines of other all India services like the IAS, IPS and the IFS? Think Pragati discusses and analyses why successive governments have been coy in taking it forward.

For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.

Warmly,

Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF

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Union Budget 2022-23: Good step forward but levers needed to make clean air, climate action more real

Down To Earth finds the Union Budget’s focus on energy transition and climate action “encouraging” but asserts that it needs real commitment and “upscaled funding” to be transformative.

Read Here

Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework: Transforming Governance Through Improved Transparency, Accountability And Efficiency

The tabling of the Output-Outcome Monitoring Framework (OOMF), along with the Union Budget, has institutionalised a clear, objective, performance-based budgeting practice in India, Swarajya emphasises.

Read Here

TN’s Virudhunagar residents share horrors of living near waste treatment unit

The News Minute’s documentary focuses on villages in Virudhanagar district of Tamil Nadu, whose residents allege that the increasing cases of death due to kidney-failure among them is caused by a bio-medical treatment plant in the vicinity.

Watch Here

Should marital rape be criminalised? | Podumentary

The Probe’s Podumentary debates the issue of ‘marital rape’ and delves into different aspects of the issue that the government has committed to relook.

Listen Here

Indian Health Services: Need of the hour?

Think Pragati, in its latest episode of All Things Policy, debates the importance of creating Indian Health Services, much like the other all India services, for bolstering the health sector and analyses potential roadblocks in its establishment.

Listen Here

More from the grantees
Potent Poverty and Inefficient Welfare Schemes
Kashmir Observer reports on the plight of people living in a small hamlet known as Nengroo Basti Darwan, located in a remote corner of Charar-e-Sharief area of district Budgam, where poverty and illiteracy are pervasive.
Did state government violate the law in launching Loktak Livelihood Mission?
The Loktak Livelihood Mission (LLM) in Manipur, launched in 2018, sought to provide employment to fish cultivators. However, Imphal Free Press reports that the Mission was launched without the Loktak Development Authority’s permission and the mandatory environmental impact assessment.
Plastic: A stumbling block on India’s path to net-zero
Plastic pollution is one of the main culprits in greenhouse gas emissions. With India generating “9.46 megatons of plastic waste each year”, is its net-zero emission goals real? India Development Review examines.
The identity-less manual scavengers of Guwahati | Documentary
EastMojo chronicles the lives and ordeal of manual scavengers living in a slum in Guwahati, who have also been missing from the government's data and census, and as a result, denied access to welfare schemes and rehabilitation.
ഒരു ക്വിയർ വിദ്യാർത്ഥിയെന്ന നിലയിൽ ബി.എഡ് ക്ലാസ് മുറിയിൽ ഞാൻ ശ്വാസം മുട്ടുകയാണ്
TrueCopy Think looks at the issue of creating queer-inclusive classrooms for schools and colleges, through the eyes of a queer student, and asks if our educational institutions are ready for making education queer-inclusive.
छतरपुर: हमारी खबर का असर, आसान हुआ पानी का सफर
Khabar Lahariya reports on the struggles of over 200 residents of Chattarpur in UP, who were unable to access their only source of water due to a damaged hand pump. The story led to the local administration fixing the facility in under a week.
The Seniority Principle: How is the Chief Justice of India Selected?
Supreme Court Observer delves into the origin and history of the practice of using the ‘Seniority Principle’ in appointing the Chief Justice of India - to protect the judiciary’s independence from political interference - which has its detractors too.
IIT Alum who gave up US Citizenship on 3 years in jail under UAPA - Sudha Bharadwaj
Mojo Story speaks to lawyer and human rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj, released on bail last year after an incarceration of over three years in the Bhima Koregaon case. She talks about her life, and the relations between the state and the citizen.

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