-Livemint.com An information economy requires an attitudinal shift in society about the critical role of quality public data In God we trust; all others must bring data." This quote is widely attributed to the American statistician W. Edwards Deming, who helped to develop Sampling techniques in the 1940s that are still used by the US department of the census. Since Deming's time, the use of data for decision support for business and...

-The Hindu Business Line   The CAG report details how these have neither helped industrial development nor boosted the economy Nearly a decade after the Special Economic Zones Act was brought into force, it is evident that the move has not helped industrial development. After examining SEZs in terms of background and objectives, fiscal incentives and facilities, approval process and administration, as well as life cycle, State-wise distribution and overall performance, parts of a...

-Business Standard The committee has suggested an umbrella law to help set up new national and state-level regulators that would also take the powers of the existing pollution control boards The T S R Subramanian committee, constituted about three months ago to review laws related to environment and forest protection, has recommended some big-ticket changes to the rules and legislation. These include a complete overhaul of certain laws, special fast-track dispensation...

-The Hindu Though studies point to an increase in the pace of glacier wastage in the western Himalayas, long-term monitoring is required to study glacier evolution and its relation to the climate At dawn, Mohd Soheb begins an arduous trek to the high camp at Chhota Shigri glacier in the Pir Panjal range in Spiti valley, Himachal Pradesh. From the PWD guesthouse at Chota Dara, he walks down to the Chandra river...

-The Hindu Business Line India's vehicles should incorporate safety features that are the norm elsewhere The tremendous increase in the number of vehicles on Indian roads has also led to an increase in road accidents. India accounts for 10 per cent of the global road crash fatalities. Statistics shows that globally more than a million people die due to road accidents every year; if we do not do anything about it by...