-The Hindu The agenda to set up a development bank is a welcome initiative, but questions remain on its design Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s press conference on August 23, announcing a slew of measures to boost the economy and financial market sentiments, had an interesting idea. It was about setting up a development bank. Ms. Sitharaman said: “In order to improve access to long-term finance, it is proposed to establish an organisation to...

-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,...

-The Hindu Gujarat tops rankings for second time New Delhi: Thirteen of the 27 States and Union Territories have improved their water management practices from last year, an analysis by the NITI Aayog has revealed. Gujarat, though it dropped a point, topped the rankings for the second year in a row with a score of 75 out of a maximum possible 100. Six States did worse than last year — with Delhi, which was...

-The Hindu Kerala needs to adopt watershed-based master planning and review building byelaws The unique geography of Kerala, with its steep climbdown from 900m high elevations of the Western Ghats to the coast of Malabar, has resulted in a land with a vast riverine network. There are no less than 44 fast flowing rivers that drain the rainwater Kerala is blessed with into the Arabian Sea. It is a lifeline that supports...

  In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...