-The Hindu Business Line Value of banknotes in circulation INCreased to Rs 18.03 lakh crore as at end-March 2018 Mumbai: Close to 99.40 per cent of specified bank notes (SBNs) of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, which were scrapped in the November-December 2016 period, have been returned from circulation, according to the Reserve Bank of India's annual report. The report pegged the total SBNs returned from circulation at Rs 15.31 lakh crore....

-The Hindu The former Chief Statistician on calculating GDP back series, on indicators of development, and the fall of the rupee The draft of the back series GDP data, which was made public by the government recently, is unlikely to change drastically even if other methods of calculation are used, says former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen. The noted economist discusses GDP, employment and poverty data; the value of the rupee;...

-The Hindu Business Line The rejection of the the Gadgil panel report, by all the six States along the Western Ghats, has proved to be a costly error The floods of catastrophic dimensions that ravaged Kerala recently have brought into sharp focus the all-round ecological destruction caused by human interference in the State’s hilly terrains. The fact that there were 12 major landslides and hundreds of minor ones within a fortnight in the...

-National Herald The police acted in gross violation of the law, killing 13 people; the judiciary failed the people and the media spread canards      The targeted shooting of peaceful demonstrators in Thoothukudi (also known as Tuticorin), which resulted in the Tamil Nadu Police killing 13 people in cold blood, and injuring scores of others, and the subsequent brutal crackdown on civilians, points to a sinister collusion between the owners of Sterlite...

-TheWeek.in Noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil blames the “law-flouting” state government for the devastation in Kerala. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), headed by Gadgil in 2011, had suggested measures to preserve the ecologically frail Ghats. But, the Kerala government, like the other five states, chose to reject the report. Having suffered such devastation, Gadgil feels that the state should survey the “ecologically sensitive zones” that have been compromised due to...