-Business Standard Integrates climate change concerns and promotes private investment and role in forestry The NDA government has made public its draft National Forest Policy to replace the one that was crafted in 1988. Incorporating consequences of climate change but entirely ignoring one of the three forest related laws, the Forest Rights Act, the policy brings new focus to plantations, growing trees outside the forest lands  and wood industry. While the policy continues...

-USNews.com Allowing the public to see government at work can help tackle corruption in the country. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with President Obama and address a joint session of the U.S. Congress — the first such address by an Indian leader in more than a decade. In the U.S., India is known for its expertise in information technology. Less well known are India's innovations...

-Business Standard As economic growth came in at 7.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015-16, many argue that much of it could be attributed to discrepancies. Chief Statistician of India T C A Anant dispels these notions. He tells Dilasha Seth and Indivjal Dhasmana that the principal method of calculating the gross domestic product (GDP) is by taking into account the production-side estimates and not an expenditure one. Edited...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...

At the Labour Line office of Aajeevika Bureau situated at Syphon Chouraha on Bedla Road in Udaipur, Santosh Poonia said that 12,926 calls were received by his office between August 2011 and March 2016, out of which almost 37 percent were payment-related grievance calls. During the same time-span, 2,008 payment-related cases (as received by the Labour Line office) could be settled. Poonia, who is Programme Manager (Legal Education and Aid...