-TheWire.in With respect to agriculture, a lot of data is either not available or is released with delay. Often, it is inconsistent with other data sets. At the recent Vibrant Gujarat summit, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said, “In this new world, data is the new oil. And data is the new wealth. India’s data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations.” The data of...

-Hindustan Times India’s groundwater recharge is not adequate even though drought conditions are making us extract more and more of the resource, and that the people are wasting too much water. In a report released recently, the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, the University of California, and the India Meteorological Department, Pune, said nearly 50% of the country is currently facing drought with at least 16% falling in the exceptional or...

-Scroll.in The ‘First Question’ helpline launched by the Kerala Forest Research Institute is being managed by research scholars, subject matter experts and scientists. On Friday morning, six-year-old Milan rang up the Kerala Forest Research Institute to get an accurate answer to a question that has been troubling him for some time: “How do fans produce wind?” His call was attended by a research scholar at the institute who patiently noted Milan’s question before...

-Firstpost.com Sangrur (Punjab): It is difficult to imagine Jasmine Khan’s pain and agony at losing her 14-month-old son in 2016. Living in a two-room concrete house in a labyrinth of bylanes in Handiaya village of Barnala district in Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency, she wells up every time Bilal intrudes on her thoughts, no matter that it has been two years since he succumbed to blood cancer. She often tries to hide...

-The Economic Times The IBC’s ‘fresh start’ process provides a systematic manner of waiving debts overseen by a judicial body. Historically, farm loan waivers have been used as a quick-fix solution to agrarian distress in India. Commonly used by political parties before elections, they have a long history at both central & state levels. However, the efficiency of waivers in actually resolving the debt burden of farmers is questionable. Waivers may work as...