-The Telegraph New Delhi: A leading cancer specialist has called on the government to investigate whether a "tobacco lobby" has influenced arms of the government to initiate action against public health organisations engaged in India's tobacco control efforts. Kailash Sharma, director of academics at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, has cited leaked government and tobacco industry documents to seek a probe into whether a Union home ministry note allegedly depicting tobacco control...

-Huffington Post blog A result of dysfunctional municipal planning and governance. The flooding woes of Indian cities have hit the headlines yet again, with Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Agartala being among the worst affected. As for the response to these crises—there is enough evidence to indicate that the patchwork solutions that have been employed will work like steroid shots that MIGht mitigate the issue temporarily, but worsen it in the future. Planning in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The bouts of rainfall that battered Houston, Mumbai and Calcutta last week, albeit in vastly different amounts, may earn tags of extreme rain events that weather scientists say are becoming more common under the influence of global warming. The tropical storm Harvey set a record for continental US with 132cm rainfall about 45km southeast of Houston on August 29. Mumbai's Santa Cruz weather station documented 31cm rain over...

-The Hindu An immediate stimulus is needed to regain the momentum to get India back to 8% growth The government’s move this past week to publish economic data for the April to June quarter of this year needs a look. The real growth of GDP, i.e. after removing the impact of inflation, was only 5.7%, much lower than expected. For the past six consecutive quarters, the growth rate has gone down steadily,...

-Hindustan Times Raghuram Rajan makes the disclosure in his latest book -- I do what I do – which is a compilation of speeches he delivered on a wide range of issues as the RBI governor. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has revealed that he did not favour demonetisation as he felt the short term economic costs associated with such a disruptive decision would outweigh any longer term benefits from it. Rajan...