-TheWire.in All three winners argue that using randomised control trials can lead to better public policy interventions. New Delhi: The 2019 Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to three economists who have focused on framing policies by first measuring the outcomes of alternative interventions on randomly chosen samples from a target population. Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have all worked on using this method to argue that randomised control trials...

-Newsclick.in Glyphosate use exposes India’s broken pesticide-herbicide regulations. Glyphosate has been in the news in the past few months for all the wrong reasons. In three separate verdicts in California, courts have held the herbicide responsible for causing cancer. In the latest case, the jury has awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed that exposure to glyphosate triggered their cancer. These cases mark the first time that citizens have successfully...

-The Hindu With a new investigation of Delhi tap water showing that it is not safe to drink, the Centre has announced plans to test the quality of piped drinking water in the states and release Swachh Pani rankings early next month. It is also trying to build a consensus to make quality standards for tap water a mandatory requirement. A team from the Bureau of Indian Standards has been sent to...

-The Indian Express The fate of close to two million people excluded from the NRC in Assam rests with the Foreigners Tribunals. The constitutionality and conduct of these quasi-judicial bodies are questionable Over 1.9 million people have been excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The herculean executive exercise, mandated and closely monitored by the Supreme Court, has incurred a staggering expenditure of over Rs 1,200 crore...

-The Telegraph Around 350 families have refused to vacate apartments constructed in violation of Coastal Regulatory Zone rules Bangalore: Politicians of all hues are making a beeline to a clutch of plush waterfront apartments in Kerala as the clock ticks on a demolition deadline set by the Supreme Court. The issue has raised wider questions: whether a state government that insisted on enforcing in letter and spirit a court order that lifted a...