-Hindustan Times A 6% fall between 2015-16 and 2016-17 was reported in RTI applications filed with the 1,950 public authorities of the Central government, which receives maximum information applications followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka. The right to information law meant to empower Indians and bring transparency in governance appeared to be losing steam with the number of queries going down mainly because of stone-walling of information by officials and slow disposal of...

-The Financial Express The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the continuation of the Agri-umbrella programme, ‘Green Revolution — Krishonnati Yojana’ for two more years. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the continuation of the Agri-umbrella programme, ‘Green Revolution — Krishonnati Yojana’ for two more years with an outlay of Rs 33,000 crore. The programme merged 11 schemes for a holistic and scientific approach towards...

-News18.com In an interview with News18’s Rupashree Nanda, Dreze, who was a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and an architect of the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), says that there have been no major initiatives in the social field in the last four years, with the partial exception of Swachh Bharat. Government data reveal that the Indian economy is growing at a robust rate but noted economist Jean Dreze believes...

-The Telegraph 300,000 indians to be checked for high blood pressure in global drive New Delhi: A nationwide public health campaign will seek to screen more than 300,000 people across India for high blood pressure this month as part of a SECond global initiative to detect undiagnosed hypertension, a disorder doctors often call a "silent killer". The campaign, called May Measurement Month 2018 and launched on Wednesday, will highlight the need for timely...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Hackers appear to have stolen data from the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), which manages over Rs 8.5 lakh crore in pension funds, by burrowing through an Aadhaar seeding platform. The EPFO tried to play down the seriousness of the data hack by suggesting that the data busters hadn't managed to break into its servers but had exploited certain vulnerabilities in a gateway which is managed by CSC...