-Live Mint As media ownership passes into many kinds of hands, the sensitivities of corporate and political owners are posing a growing threat to unencumbered reporting State censorship of mainstream media is now passè. No government, at least in our country, has much stomach for it. There is just too much media around, always looking for something to shriek or tweet about. But there is a new beast that the squeamish among...

-The Times of India   PUNE/NEW DELHI: Acknowledging the shadow of El Nino on this year's monsoon, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday predicted below normal June-September rains at 95% of the long period average. In its first long period forecast for this year, IMD said there was a 56% probability of below normal to deficient rains, as compared to a 44% chance of rains being normal or better. The department...

-Bloomberg   Actual rainfall may be five per cent more or less than the prediction The monsoon in India, which provides about 70 per cent of annual rainfall, will be normal this year amid forecasts for the emergence of an El Niño that previously caused droughts, government officials said. Rain could be 96 per cent of a 50-year average of 89 cm (35 inches) in the June-September period, said two officials with direct knowledge...

-The Hindu   Ideological labels are likely to mislead by channelling the debate into issues of capitalism and socialism and detract from the real problem George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Having forgotten the license-permit-quota-raj that enveloped us from 1950 to 1980 and its ‘crony socialism,' many intellectuals, mediapersons and politicians have now discovered ‘crony capitalism.' The license raj consisted of stifling controls imposed on...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Essential nutrition interventions are found to be strongly associated with lower under-nutrition levels in India. This is shown by constructing and comparing a child undernutrition index and child nutrition score, both of which use data from India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3). The CUI indicates that 16 of the 28 states have high or very high levels of child under-nutrition. The CNS indicates that 24 states...