-The Hindu ‘Lacks vigour, won’t stand up to scrutiny’ The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) has released a detailed note enumerating its objections to former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian’s paper on India’s GDP growth. The note said that Mr. Subramanian’s paper “lacks rigour” and would not stand up to academic scrutiny. Lower GDP The paper, released in Harvard University, postulated that the GDP growth between 2011-17 was significantly lower than the 7%...

-Hindustan Times The global population could reach its peak around the end of the current century, with an estimated population of 11 bn, according to the UN report. New Delhi: The world’s population will increase to 9.7 billion by 2050, going up by 2 bn from the earlier 7.7 bn, shows a new United Nations report launched on Monday. The global population could reach its peak around the end of the current...

-The Hindu All it would have taken was to ensure that the children had a meal at night Along with my colleagues, I had investigated the so-called mystery disease in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, during its outbreak in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The local name for it was acute encephalitis syndrome, but we found that the disease was not encephalitis but encephalopathy. This distinction is important. Encephalitis results from a viral infection, unless proved...

-The Hindu Major drop seen in open defecation India has made great gains in providing basic sanitation facilities since the start of the millennium, accounting for almost two thirds of the 650 million people globally who stopped practising open defecation between 2000 and 2017. However, a monitoring report by UN organisations released on Tuesday also shows that there has been absolutely no growth in the population with access to piped water facilities over...

-Hindustan Times The shooting incidents — between May 17 and June 15 — that HT analysed resulted in 16 deaths and left at least 22 people injured New Delhi: At least 220 bullets have been fired on Delhi’s streets in 43 incidents of shooting reported in the Capital over the last 30 days, according to HT’s analysis of all such incidents at a time when senior police officers are expressing concern about...