-The Hindu The former Chief Statistician on calculating GDP back series, on indicators of development, and the fall of the rupee The draft of the back series GDP data, which was made public by the government recently, is unlikely to change drastically even if other methods of calculation are used, says former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen. The noted economist discusses GDP, employment and poverty data; the value of the rupee;...

-The Times of India THANE: The devastation caused by the floods in Kerala could be a preview to a similar disaster in-waiting in several cities and town of Maharashtra, where a combination of heavy rains, poor dam management and builder-driven encroachments in the flood control line could lead to a repeat of July 26, 2005, experts claimed. Maharashtra, with a total of 3,264 dams, could be highly vulnerable to devastating floods and...

-TheWeek.in Noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil blames the “law-flouting” state government for the devastation in Kerala. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), headed by Gadgil in 2011, had suggested measures to preserve the ecologically frail Ghats. But, the Kerala government, like the other five states, chose to reject the report. Having suffered such devastation, Gadgil feels that the state should survey the “ecologically sensitive zones” that have been compromised due to...

-The Hindu Business Line The rejection of the the Gadgil panel report, by all the six States along the Western Ghats, has proved to be a costly error The floods of catastrophic dimensions that ravaged Kerala recently have brought into sharp focus the all-round ecological destruction caused by human interference in the State’s hilly terrains. The fact that there were 12 major landslides and hundreds of minor ones within a fortnight in the...

-Deccan Chronicle The managers used a part of the 60 per cent amount to repay the Mudra loan for a year and pocketed the rest. New Delhi: The Modi government may have to get battle ready soon for cleaning up the Mudra loan mess that has added to the concerns of the banking system. The plan to create “job creators and not job seekers” by disbursing massive credit to micro and small...