For the Government of India the first phase of the national solar mission has been a grand success. It not only managed to attract industry to invest in the generation of an energy considered costly, but also dramatically drove down the cost of producing this energy. In its celebration, little did the government realise that a major conglomerate had subverted rules to acquire a stake in the solar mission much...

-The Telegraph Google India, one of nearly two dozen online sites accused of hosting objectionable content, today said blocking them couldn’t be an option as that would violate the right to freedom of speech and expression in a democratic country. “There are serious issues regarding freedom of speech and we are proud to have this freedom in our country unlike a totalitarian regime like China,” the website’s counsel Neeraj Kishan Kaul told...

-The Indian Express Kapil Sibal, Union minister for communications and information technology, caused great consternation when he declared his intention to scour the Web of “objectionable content”. He showed reporters choice examples of material that maligned Islam, the PM and Sonia Gandhi, among others, and insisted that companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, make sure they conform to India’s “community standards” and weed this stuff out themselves. He also reportedly added...

Washington-based Freedom Institute has expressed concern over the decreasing freedom of expression on the Internet in India. The Institute, which put India in the company of states like China, Egypt and Iran which saw a deterioration of freedom of expression on the Internet since the 2009 report, highlighted the tightening of surveillance and prosecution of online posts. India’s freedom index declined from 34 in 2009 to 36 in 2011, reflecting the...

KEY TRENDS    • The proportion of households which completed 100 days of wage employment under MGNREGA in total households that worked was 6.02 percent in 2014-15, 10.07 percent in 2015-16, 7.79 percent in 2016-17 and 5.78 percent in 2017-18 @$ • Completed works as a proportion of total works was 30.15 percent in 2014-15, 29.39 percent in 2015-16, 40.27 percent in 2016-17, 32.01 percent in 2017-18 and 3.3 percent in 2018-19 (as on 7th May, 2018) @$   • In...