-Hindustan Times Election Commission’s faulty audit plan has led to an avoidable controversy. We recommend a few steps. The bizarre claim made in London recently about the alleged hacking of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in previous elections has done more harm than good by diverting public attention from genuine concerns about EVMs and the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) lack of transparency in the matter. The controversy over the security of EVMs dates...

-IndiaSpend/ CBGA Agriculture has got an unprecedented 144% rise in allocation in the interim budget announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government--from Rs 57,600 crore in the 2018-19 budget estimates to Rs 1,40,764 crore in the interim budget. This took the share of the agriculture ministry in the total union budget to 5.2%, a benchmark succeeding governments will be compelled to match for political reasons. For context, the share has been...

-The Hindu The SDG India Index overlooks the aspect of inter-dependence of Sustainable Development Goals India was one among the 193 United Nations member states to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. It has been making sincere efforts to achieve these goals. The SDG India Index: Baseline Report 2018, released to the public in December 2018 by NITI Aayog, is a useful comparative account of how well different States...

-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-The Telegraph Medical leaders and associations must take the lead in issuing effective and clear messages countering fake information Along with the Hippocratic oath, the MBBS curriculum has a mantra: bar God, all must provide data. A good physician treats patients based on scientific principles derived from solid evidence. The physician’s personal experience may embellish or temper these principles, but should not be ‘contrary’ to them. In India, the mantra of scientific data...