-The Hindu MPs raise questions on privacy, purpose and Srikrishna panel report The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill will throw open its doors for all stakeholders to express objections and point out loopholes in the proposed legislation, the panel decided at its first meeting held on Thursday. IT Secretary Anshu Prakash gave a presentation giving details of the bill. “Today was just a preliminary briefing, we didn’t go into the bill...

-United Nations Last year was the second warmest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Wednesday “The average global temperature has risen by about 1.1°C since the pre-industrial era and ocean heat content is at a record level,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.   “On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, we are heading towards a temperature increase of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of...

-The Hindu 'Grabbing private land and claiming it as its own makes the State an encroacher’ A citizen’s right to own private property is a fundamental right. The state cannot take possession of it without following due procedure and authority of law, the Supreme Court has held in a judgment. The state cannot trespass into the private property of a citizen and then claim ownership of the land in the name of ‘adverse...

-The Hindu Worldwide, one child/young adolescent died every 5 seconds in 2018, says UN inter-agency group India is among the few countries in the world where, in 2018, the mortality under-5 years of girls, exceeded that of boys, according to the ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality’ report by the United Nations (UN) inter-agency group for child mortality. The global report states that in 2018 fewer countries showed gender disparities in child mortality,...

-Outlook India A district collector takes it upon himself to rid the region of a degrading practice visited upon sick children—the scourge of daagna Umaria, Madhya Pradesh, goes to sleep at 7 pm. Or the roads give that impression—quiet and enchantingly deserted. The young (it was carved out of Shahdol in 1998) and small district is also home to Bandhavgarh National Park. Umaria also has a prevalent malpractice, called daagna, which has its...