-PTI Patna: Bihar is the country's most flood-prone state with 73 per cent of its 94,163-sq.km area getting flooded annually, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said in Patna today. 76 per cent people of North Bihar are at risk of getting caught in floods, said Giriraj Amarnath, senior researcher and project lead of IWMI, who added that Index-based Flood Insurance (IBFI) could prove to be a boon for the situation. Speaking at...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union agriculture ministry is probing the circumstances under which a senior government scientist purportedly tried to malign vaccines used to protect livestock from foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks that can threaten India's milk yields. An expert panel from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has told the agriculture ministry that Bhoj Raj Singh, a microbiologist at an ICAR research centre, has "caused damage" to the reputation of India's foot-and-mouth...

-Business Standard As critics find fault in the new gross domestic product (GDP) data, National Statistical Commission (NSC) Chairman Pronab Sen, heading a committee to review the methodology of the new series, tells Indivjal Dhasmana much of the criticism is due to the lack of information about the methodology and sourcing of the new data. Edited excerpts:   NSC has appointed a committee under you to review the new GDP data. Has it...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: Livelihood issues have been pushing high school and higher-secondary pass-outs of Tamil Nadu to head out to foreign shores. At least one out of every 20 households in the state, predominantly along the coastal belt, have migrant workers in South East Asian and Arab countries, said a sample study by social scientists here. The average cost of migration for a person is estimated at Rs 95,800. This...

-The Asian Age The much-quoted sentence, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics", was attributed to the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli by American author Mark Twain. Although researchers could never find such a statement in any written work of Disraeli, the sentence gained universal popularity to signify how economists and other number-crunchers use the "persuasive power" of figures to make a political point or...