-The Hindu Three agencies have come up with varying figures, ranging from 7-120% of GDP, it said The Standing Committee on Finance has shied away from estimating the quantum of black money in and outside India, saying that different methods by various agencies are yielding vastly differing figures. The Standing Committee relied on three institutes — the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the National Institute of Financial Management and the...

-IndiaToday.in Earlier this month, Chief Minister of the state Kamal Nath had asked the authorities to draft a legislation on Right to Water aiming at ensuring adequate water for every person in the urban areas. * According to the Right to Water Act, 55 litres of water per person per day will be given for usage * The Right to Water act will also have stringent provisions for preventing wastage of water * Madhya...

-Scroll.in Even at night, people living in densely-built, low-income urban neighbourhoods get no respite. As India stares at one of the longest heatwaves in three decades – which so far has claimed over 200 lives – experts warn that the scorcher will impact people in poor urban neighbourhoods for weeks after even after it is over. In a study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment in April, researchers mapped and...

-TheWire.in Over a 100 children have died in Bihar due to AES – or acute encephalitis syndrome – a deceptively straightforward umbrella term for infections that cause swellings on the brain. An outbreak of infections classified as acute encephalitis syndrome (AES). * What is AES? AES is an umbrella term of infections that cause swellings on the brain. Its symptoms typically include headache, vomiting, confusion and seizures, and complications include memory loss, coma and...

-Newsclick.in After economic liberalisation, barring a brief hiatus, the growth rate has scarcely moved up compared with earlier, with manufacturing -- the sector that counts most -- often logging lower growth than before. The “gross domestic product” (GDP) is a concept rooted in an epistemic position which is intrinsically incapable of recognising the existence of a “surplus” in society. A simple example will make this clear. Suppose we have an agrarian economy...