-The Hindu India needs a top statistician to frame data-based policies for welfare and development In Poverty and Famines (1981), Amartya Sen argued that poor distribution of food, wartime inflation, speculative buying and panic hoarding were important reasons for the devastating Bengal famine of 1943, while Madhusree Mukerjee, in her 2010 book, Churchill’s Secret War, wrote of the role of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, his wartime Cabinet’s decisions and “denial policy”...

-The Hindu Kerala needs to adopt watershed-based master planning and review building byelaws The unique geography of Kerala, with its steep climbdown from 900m high elevations of the Western Ghats to the coast of Malabar, has resulted in a land with a vast riverine network. There are no less than 44 fast flowing rivers that drain the rainwater Kerala is blessed with into the Arabian Sea. It is a lifeline that supports...

-The Hindu Say policymakers induce farmers to adopt incongruent crop pattern, causing water crisis Pune: The water crisis in Maharashtra is a “policy-induced failure”, according to economists and water academics who have specifically warned of the ‘desertification’ of the parched Marathwada region in the near future. “It is the ecological illiteracy of policy-makers and the selfishness of the power elite in inducing farmers across Marathwada to adopt a crop pattern that is not...

-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-Livemint.com Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, whose report on Western Ghats was rejected by the Kerala government, on what caused the Kerala floods and how the rebuilding process should be carried out Ernakulam (Kerala): Submitted seven years ago on 31 August 2011, ecologist Madhav Gadgil’s report on the biodiverse Western Ghats—a portion of which falls in Kerala—had warned that the combination of massive ecological destruction and extreme weather events trigger disaster. His words proved...