-Outlook The structural basis is being laid out for future authoritarianism at the behest of foreign biometric and surveillance technology What distinguishes Barack Obama and David Cameron from Narendra Modi? Obama and Cameron oppose biometric identification but Modi supports it. On 11 May 2005 in the US, the Real ID Act for a national ID was rushed through US Congress and the US Senate with utmost urgency, a legacy of George Bush...

-Down to Earth Several initiatives are demonstrating how the informal e-waste recycling sector can be formalised Savita Devi (name changed), a municipal solid waste worker in Ahmedabad city, used to earn Rs 1,500 per month. When she joined an initiative of GIZ India in 2012, where she was trained to collect e-waste, her income rose to Rs 2,500 per month. “We are now able to hire private tutors to educate our children,”...

-PTI Mobile phone production in India has reached 100 million with leading companies setting up their manufacturing base in the country, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Saturday. “Today, I am happy to announce that in December, Rs. 1.14 lakh crore investment has come in electronic manufacturing in India. “We have attracted around 15 new mobile plants.” “Earlier in 2014, 68 million (mobile phones) were being manufactured and now 100 million are...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-The Hindu Business Line Instructional videos made by, and for the agricultural community Treatment of paddy seeds and scientific application of fungicide in Odisha, the creation of an ‘Azolla’ mother pit in Andhra Pradesh, insights into mint cultivation in Uttar Pradesh, and natural remedies for diarrhoea in cattle in Karnataka. You learn about all these and more from the nearly 4,000 videos produced by Digital Green, a seven-year-old development venture that is...