-The Hindu Mamata Banerjee’s assumption that Bengali nationalism could block anti-incumbency and Hindutva may be optimistic The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is a unique specimen in understanding anti-incumbency. Welfare schemes that usually make incumbents popular have added to the anti-incumbency woes of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the workers of her party made those the easy and only option for rent-seeking. ‘Cut money’, or the cut for TMC local...

-Down to Earth Gaps in data on women and girls particularly severe; countries do not invest enough in public intent data systems, the report said Most countries have shied away from an open-data policy — more so countries with developing economies, according to a recent World Bank report. Only 11 per cent low-income countries consistently made available with a license classifiable as ’open’, the report flagged. The comparable rate for lower-middle-income countries was...

-The Indian Express 'Extremely severe' Cyclone Fani affected 28 million people, killing 90 people in India and Bangladesh, and causing economic loss to the tune of US$8.1 billion, the report added. India ranks seventh among countries most affected in 2019 by climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index, 2021, released Monday by Germanwatch — an NGO based in Bonn, Germany. In 2019, monsoon continued for a month longer than normal in...

A recent report by Christian Aid -- an international NGO based out of London -- says that the world was not just hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it actually faced massive loss of lives and livelihoods owing to the intensification of the ongoing climate crisis. Climate-related disasters varied from fires in Australia and the United States, floods in China, India and Japan to storms in Europe and the...

-Hindustan Times Floods, Cyclones, colder winter, unexpected rains, India has seen them all. 2020 has been strange and difficult in so many ways that it seems almost criminal to add one more to the mix — the weather. Floods, Cyclones, colder winter, unexpected rains, India has seen them all. High rainfall at a time when rainfall is declining India received a total of 1,286.6mm rainfall until December 27 this year. This is the ninth...