-The Hindu As the proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, passed in the Lok Sabha on May 7, faces the Rajya Sabha hurdle, several child rights experts have begun to challenge its premise for treating adolescents accused of heinous crimes on a par with adults. Their primary contention is that the basis for proposing such amendments for stringent action is flawed and unlikely to act as a deterrent. Victim, not...

-Business Standard R Nagaraj, professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), had disputed the Central Statistics Office (CSO) methodology on non-financial private corporate sector, which is a segment in the new GDP data. His criticism was mainly on the ground that CSO altered the methodology in 2015 from what was agreed on by a sub-committee, in which Nagaraj was a non-official member, in 2014. CSO gave a rejoinder...

-The Hindu A study shows that Indians are not immune to health consequences of smoking and that smokers have a higher death rate than non-smokers. Recently, a parliamentary committee declined to extend the size of health warnings on cigarette packets due to lack of independent evidence on the health impacts of smoking on the Indian population. A longitudinal study conducted by the National Council of Applied Economics (NCAER) and University of Maryland shows that in...

A recent press release from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the area affected by recent rains and hailstorms is estimated to be 189.81 lakh hectares (on 24 April 2015), which is nearly double the total area affected that was earlier estimated on 16 April 2015. (See the link below). Experts argue that such extreme weather events may severely damage food economy of the nation, apart from breaking the spirit...

-The Hindu "NGOs, particularly those involved in protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu, received funds from abroad" The Union Home Ministry suspects that many non-government organisations registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) are indulging in money laundering. Enforcement agencies have so far initiated investigation against 20 such NGOs. “These NGOs, particularly those involved in protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu, received funds from...