-The Hindu Business Line THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The overall monsoon deficit for the country as a whole is in double digits for the first time this season, and forecasts suggest it may worsen during the rest of August. India Met Department assessed the deficit at 10 per cent with the worst-hit South topping a list of three geographical regions with 20 per cent. The other deficits are reported from East and North-East India (-12...

-The Indian Express Note to policymakers: Access to technology by itself does not ensure learning. Speaking at the Saarc Summit in Nepal last November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that “information technology has removed all barriers to quality education”. With the launch of Digital India, state governments and education practitioners have become increASIngly interested in the potential of technology to address low learning levels in primary schools. Behind Modi’s assertion is a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Election Commission has suspended its five-month-old project to clean the electoral rolls by linking and authenticating voter I-card details with Aadhaar data, days after the Supreme Court ruled that the unique identification number could be used only for PDS and LPG distribution schemes. "All further activities relating to collection/feeding/seeding of Aadhaar number being undertaken under the National Electoral Rolls Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) shall...

-The ASIan Age In granting anticipatory bail to Teesta Setelvad and Javed Anand on August 11, the Bombay high court noted: “A dissenting view cannot be said to be against the sovereignty of the nation.” Like several other recent rulings by the judiciary, the high court also reminded the state of its duty to protect a citizen’s right to criticise and disagree. Successive Indian governments have told the world proudly of the...

-IBNLive.com The Report 'Democracy in India: A Citizen's Perspective' tries to assess people's understanding and perception towards democracy. It is a part of a comparative study (State of Democracy in South ASIa) of five South ASIan countries that include, besides India - Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The first round of the SDSA was conducted in 2005 and a report based on it was published by Oxford University Press in...