-The Hindu A culmination of flawed policy proposals, this piece of legislation will refine, store and trade personal information In the continuing social churn and widespread citizen protests, it would seem out of place to direct thought towards issues such as Data Protection. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha this month, is a revolutionary piece of legislation that promises to return power and control to...

-The Indian Express In another significant departure from the draft Bill, the Bill allows personal data to be stored and processed abroad, without requiring a mirror of the data in India. The Personal Data Protection Bill listed to be introduced in Lok Sabha on Wednesday has allowed transfer of certain types of personal data overseas, but has given broad powers to government agencies to collect personal and sensitive data of citizens. An earlier...

-The Indian Express This comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing the 14th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification on Monday, mentioned that “we are focusing on ZBNF”. India’s premier academic body of agricultural scientists has hit out at Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), terming it as an “unproven” technology bringing no incremental value gain to either farmers or consumers. “The government should not needlessly invest capital...

-The Hindu There is now an opportunity to temper the rancour in Tamil Nadu over ‘migrants taking over’ jobs meant for locals, thanks to the data on migration — inward and outward — from Census 2011. Chennai: Controversies witnessed in recent months over the recruitment of non-Tamils in government jobs in Tamil Nadu have triggered a perceptible rise in voices against migrants taking up jobs in the State. The slogans demanding ‘protection’ of...

In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...