-The Telegraph The pandemic has given surveillance tools legitimacy in the eyes of civil society which at other times might have been more concerned about privacy issues Among the “seven” to-dos that Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed for the country on April 13 while announcing the extension of a nationwide lockdown was a call for citizens to download the ‘Aarogya Setu’ app. It would help “prevent the spread of [the] corona infection,”...

-The Indian Express The usage of cash and other cash-based services, however, dipped during the period, the data showed. New Delhi: The month of March, in which the national lockdown began, saw a sharp rise in digital financial transactions countrywide, according to data accessed by The Indian Express. According to the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, the total value of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transactions — the biggest online payment...

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in China during early January this year and its dissemination globally within a few days, health experts have suggested ways to check its spread exponentially among the rest of the population. In the age of internet connectivity, work-from-home and self-isolation have been advised as solutions to ensure social distancing and avoid large-scale social gatherings. Experts have asked governments and private enterprises to keep people at...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: Uttarkhand lost 60 leopards and tigers, who were declared man-eaters, in over 19 years, according to forest department data. This year, two leopards — one in Haridwar and the other in Narendra Nagar — have already been killed after they were declared man-eaters. All these big cats, including 56 leopards and four tigers, were eliminated by shooters as they posed threat to human lives. Please click...

-Newslaundry.com It’s a repository of public datasets on Indian agriculture and socioeconomic indicators and, going forward, on financial inclusion and rural development. Data, they say, is the new oil. It undergirds much of the modern economy and, increasingly, the polity. There’s hardly a socioeconomic sector that Big Data doesn’t drive today, from the cutting edge of scientific research and technology to the mundane chore of buying groceries. The sheer volume of...