A recent report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) brings forth the dichotomy between digital divide and India’s transition towards a cashless economy. The rural-urban divide in access to computer and internet is quite stark, according to the report entitled 'Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, July 2017 to June 2018'.   The 75th round National Sample Survey (NSS) report on education finds that...

-The New Indian Express The Survey of India plans to use drones to create a high-resolution map of every inch of India. It comes with unprecedented privacy and security challenges The Survey of India (SoI) has embarked upon an ambitious project of using drone imaging to create an ultra-high resolution spatial and topographic map of India. Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, calls it the biggest endeavour in Indian...

-The Indian Express There’s a need to come up with a new model of growth through focused value chains. When it comes to exports, there are several key issues that affect the various stakeholders concerned. It’s almost sardonic that when you type “agrarian” in Google, it invariably suggests “crisis” as the following word. In 2019, the Indian farm sector grew minus 0.1% year-on-year in January-March and 2% and 2.1% in the next...

  Air quality in North India in general and Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi NCR) in particular plunged to its lowest point in recent years during October-November thanks to a variety of factors. Through media reports one comes to know that stubble burning (also called paddy straw burning/ crop residue burning) is chiefly responsible for the public health crisis in India's capital and its nearby regions. Data accessed from the website...

-Hindustan Times It threatens individual sovereignty, undermines citizen rights, and is a lost chance to meaningfully grapple with data colonisation Data is a sovereign asset,” said the Union minister of railways and commerce, Piyush Goyal, at the G20 meeting in Japan. Goyal was against using free trade agreements to justify the free flow of data. Instead, he said, government restrictions on data flows would allow India to be able to use “personal,...