-The Hindu Business Line Suppressing data that point to low growth, rising joblessness and poverty impedes effective policymaking in a crisis Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, said “data is the new oil” and stressed on the credibility of data to combat the difficulties in real-time monitoring of the Indian economy. She even proposed building data centre parks throughout the country so that skilful incorporation of data in every step...

-The Indian Express In January 2018, Justices Gogoi, Lokur, J Chelameswar, and Kurian Joseph, the most senior judges then in the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented step, called a press conference to question the conduct of then CJI Dipak Misra, especially on the allocation of important cases. Reacting sharply to the nomination of former CJI Ranjan Gogoi as a Rajya Sabha member by the government, his former colleague Justice (retired) Madan B...

-The Indian Express ICMR on coronavirus testing: India has conducted roughly 6,000 tests so far, lower than the US (8,000), Japan (9,600), France (12,000), the UK (13,000), and Italy (23,000). South Korea has conducted as many as 2 lakh, which experts see as the reason for their significantly declining numbers. As each country debates own testing strategy to combat Covid-19, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has decided to monitor community...

-Business Standard Schools across the state shut till April 2, while protests and demonstrations banned Lucknow: In the backdrop of the coronavirus scare expected to hit the livelihood of daily wage earners due to slowing down of economy, the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday announced to constitute a high-level committee to provide them the required monetary support. The three-member committee, headed by the UP finance minister and comprising the state agriculture and labour...

-The Hindu Kerala’s rationale for revising its COVID-19 testing guidelines could prove counterproductive Even as the World Health Organization has been urging countries that have reported many laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases to become more aggressive in testing, India continues to have among the lowest testing rates in the world. In India, only those people with a travel history to high-risk COVID-19 affected countries or with close contacts to laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases and...