-The Indian Express The enhancement of state powers without control or transparency is not being done against our wishes The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the...

-India Water Portal Tamil Nadu continues to Witness cycles of flood and drought annually. Mismanagement of traditional water management systems is one of the main reasons. That Tamil Nadu qualifies to be dubbed as a land of climate paradoxes is beyond debate. The massive flood of 2015 was quickly followed by a punishing drought in 2016. Though the state benefited marginally from the south-west monsoon, as is usually the case, the biggest...

-The Times of India At the age of 18, Anwar Ali was the sole breadwinner for his family. Last week, he was hit by a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus while cycling to work in Koppal. He lay bleeding on the road. Instead of rushing him to hospital, most passersby took out their mobile phones to click pictures of the bloodied man. A morbid, voyeuristic urge to upload heart-rending photos of...

-The Hindu Business Line Rising pest attacks are mounting pressure on cotton farmers even as prices play truant. Rajeshbhai Patel is not amused. The farmer in Kadi, northern Gujarat grew cotton on four bigha in this year’s kharif season, instead of 11 in 2016. He had reduced the acreage fearing increasing costs owing to pests attacks. But as cotton prices rule at unusually high levels in the ongoing harvest season, he...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s verdict that ordinances are subject to judicial review, and do not automatically create enduring effects, places a timely check on a power rampantly abused by governments On January 2, in one of many judgments delivered on its first working day of the year, the Supreme Court, in Krishna Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar, made a series of pronouncements with potentially huge implications for the future of...