The year 2022 was supposed to mark the recovery of the Indian economy from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns of the preceding two years. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February pushed up prices of food, fuel and fertilizer worldwide. In India consumer price inflation, which had declined to under 5 percent in the September-November period of 2021, has steadily increased, staying above 6 percent throughout 2022.    What happened to rural incomes in 2022? An...

Mint India’s rural borrowers and small businesses owners may have easier access to credit with public sector banks (PSBs) planning to increase financing to these segments, after the Union finance ministry urged lenders to improve their credit-deposit ratio. The C-D ration indicates how much of a banks' deposit base is being utilized for extending loans. The development may help expedite the revival of the rural economy, which is struggling to reach pre-covid...

Urgent action needed to curb deadly air pollution in South Asia A new report by the World Bank states that Nine out of the world’s 10 cities with the worst air pollution are in South Asia. Ambient air pollution is a public health crisis for South Asia, not only imposing high economic costs but also causing an estimated 2 million premature deaths each year. The health impacts of air pollution range...

-Newslaundry The Government of India has removed exemptions for journalistic work from data protection obligations in the fourth iteration of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022. If this iteration is passed as law a story containing personal data may result in journalists having to prove to a data protection board that their story was in the public interest, Newslaundry reported. The three previous versions - in 2018, 2019 and 2021...

-Hindustan Times Chief minister M K Stalin had during the assembly sessions spoken of data-centric governance and the TNeGA department is responsible for driving all technology initiatives for the state Government. The data would be available in English and Tamil Chennai: The Tamil Nadu e-governance agency (TNeGA) conducted a pre-bid meeting on Thursday as the state government is looking to build tools to create a unique individual number for each resident of...