As fatal rains batter parts of the north Indian hill state of Uttarakhand, following a Summer that also saw hundreds of deaths from heat waves, a new assessment out on June 19 from the World Bank warns of increasingly difficult effects of climate change on several parts of South Asia in the next 20-30 years. It argues that extreme weather events are likely to get more frequent, as temperatures rise. The...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Amid reports of US cyber intelligence units snooping on secret data worldwide, a PIL filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a direction to the Union government to take urgent steps to protect its official data stored on the internet and privacy of millions of Indians holding accounts on social networking sites. Petitioner Prof S N Singh said many government offices and officials use free...

-IPS News ROME: Jassiben, a self-employed potter from Nana Shahpur village in western India, loves Summer despite the heat waves and frequent power cuts, because Summer days always mean great business. "Poor people like us do not have refrigerators, so they store drinking water in the earthen pots that keep the water cool," says Jassiben, who uses only one name. "This year, the demand has been so high, I am selling at least...

-IANS Those who cherish India's constitutional values will find Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's boast to build a state of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (India's first home minister and deputy prime minister) taller than the Statue of Liberty rather chilling. By prizing nationalism over individual freedom, Modi may have once again revealed his illiberal nature. People who dislike this aspect of him, Leftists mainly, give vent to their disapproval by dismissing Modi's development...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Come July and our babus will be back in school. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) will begin an e-governance training module called the e-Governance Executive Training Programme (eGEP). This is the first such national-level programme for officers at the level of under secretary, section officer, deputy director, assistant director, tehsil and block level officer or equivalent. They will be nominated by their department...