-The Times of India GURUGRAM: The dumping of thousands of used bottles has created a giant mound of plastic waste on the fringes of the Basai wetland in Gurugram, not far from the controversial plant to treat construction and demolition waste that has drawn strong protests from Environmental activists. This plastic waste mound, say local residents, is a recent development. Next to it is a privately run plastic compressing and recycling unit...

-Livemint.com Harsh Vardhan says GM mustard is a very contentious issue and said a lot of opinions have been expressed for and against its introduction New Delhi: Even as the government continues to put on hold its final decision on release of genetically modified (GM) mustard for commercial cultivation, Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan said that the proposal has not been shelved and remains under consideration. Vardhan emphasized that GM mustard...

-The Indian Express Closure of Sterlite plant says something about our collective morality: Death, violence move governments more than reason and evidence It took a brazen exercise of what sociologists since Max Weber refer to as the state’s “monopoly of violence” by Tamil Nadu authorities to bring our attention to a problem that had been affecting the local residents of Tuticorin for over two decades. Since this tragic incident, it took hardly...

-TheWire.in They have demanded an independent and transparent probe into the May 22 violence which left 13 dead and several injured. New Delhi: United Nation’s human rights experts have criticised the “disproportionate and excessive use of force” by the police during the anti-Sterlite protest in Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu on May 22. The police firing and violence had left 13 dead and scores injured and had evoked widespread criticism in India...

-The Hindu Trust in official statistics is vital for democracy — the new policy must avoid centralisation David Spiegelhalter, president of Royal Statistical Society in the U.K., gave a most unusual presidential address in 2017. Instead of talking about esoteric statistical techniques, he talked about declining trust in numbers in a post-truth society bombarded by fake news and alternative facts. He recommended to the statistical community that the best way of inspiring...