-Newslaundry.com The circumstances of Nagaraju Koppula’s death point to reasons why our newsrooms continue to be incapable of absorbing people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In a heavily contractualised media industry, unions have become a bad word and journalists associated with unions have come to be looked on as trouble makers. It’s no surprise, then, that lawyers, academics and activists outnumbered journalists at the condolence-cum-stocktaking meeting called on by the Delhi Union of Journalists...

-Business Standard As critics find fault in the new gross domestic product (GDP) data, National Statistical Commission (NSC) Chairman Pronab Sen, heading a committee to review the methodology of the new series, tells Indivjal Dhasmana much of the criticism is due to the lack of information about the methodology and sourcing of the new data. Edited excerpts:   NSC has appointed a committee under you to review the new GDP data. Has it...

-The Times of India As successive spells of freak rains in March-April ravaged fields across Uttar Pradesh, a spate of farmer deaths were reported. Most of these were ascribed to suicide or trauma, as crop losses mounted and the state appeared to be reeling under a fresh agrarian crisis. The UP government moved to provide relief, but on farmer deaths, it saw things a little differently. "There is no conclusive proof, yet,...

-The Asian Age The much-quoted sentence, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics", was attributed to the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli by American author Mark Twain. Although researchers could never find such a statement in any written work of Disraeli, the sentence gained universal popularity to signify how economists and other number-crunchers use the "persuasive power" of figures to make a political point or...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: They may have lower growth rates than India, but Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal are more prompt about conducting regular surveys on the nutritional status of their population. The last nutrition survey done in India was ten years ago despite its unacceptably high levels of malnutrition. During this period, neighbouring nations have completed two surveys. There has been no district level nutritional survey in India since 2002,...