-The Hindu ‘It is planning to develop minimum standards to enhance availability’ The Tamil Nadu Government will improve suo motu publication of data under the Right to Information Act on the websites of government departments, said Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan here on Monday. To a question raised during the discussion following the launch of the book Whole Numbers and Half Truths, authored by journalist S. Rukmini, he...

-The Hindu Nutrition indicators recorded in real-time are not in the public domain The Ministry of Women and Child Development has spent over ₹1,000 crore on its Poshan or Nutrition Tracker, which records real-time data on malnourished and ‘severe acute malnourished’ children in each anganwadi. But four years since its launch, the Government is yet to make the data public. The Government has spent ₹1,053 crore on the Poshan Tracker or Information Communication...

-The Hindu The onus is on the government to ensure that there is a robust system of Public Data production and use When evidence-based policymaking becomes the cornerstone of good governance, it is difficult to overstate the importance of reliable and timely Public Data. Such data have a direct bearing on the state’s capability to design and implement programmes effectively. Among the emerging economies, India is credited to have a relatively robust...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-NetworkIdeas.org In recent weeks the media have featured stories bordering on the alarmist about a coal shortage in India. Coal inventories with thermal power plants had fallen to levels at which major country-wide power outages seemed inevitable. Fortunately, that has not (as yet) materialized, but it is indeed true that coal inventories with the power producers did collapse from the equivalent of around 30 days requirement to that for a couple...