-The Indian Express One-fourth of the urban population lives in these small towns (20,000 to 1,00,000 population). These 7 crore people need amenities to match up to their ‘urban’ status. Many of these towns may not be in the vicinity of big cities. Small towns in India are something of an oxymoron. They are far removed from cities in character and appearance and are constantly struggling to establish their “urbanness”. A...

-The Indian Express They discussed verification methods through news searches, reverse image searches and fact-checking organisations as well as technical features. The question came up again and again. “If a WhatsApp message comes to the police, how can we find the original sender of the message?” asked Naveen Rana, an IT cell member from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Jaipur. “If we don’t have the data, how...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: A tragic bus accident in Uttarkashi district that left 14 people dead and several injured has once again brought to fore the issue of unsafe roads in the state. In the first 10 months of 2018, 849 people have died in road accidents while 1,334 people have been left injured in Uttarakhand. Between January and October, a total of 1,191 road accidents were reported from across...

-The Hindu We won’t allow anyone to cut our trees, say the women of Balarampur village For three generations now, and spanning 40 years, Chaturi Sahu, 70, has been unfailingly sending one male member from her family to patrol the nearby Jhinkargadi forest to ensure that its trees and shrubs are untouched. Year after year, her father-in-law, husband and son, who are part of the foot soldiers of Balarampur, a nondescript village in...

-The Hindu Pace to pick up before end date Guwahati: About 4.5 lakh of the 40,07,707 people excluded from the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) have applied for re-inclusion in the list. Simultaneously, the authorities have received 175 applications challenging the inclusion of names of suspected foreigners in the NRC meant for bona fide residents of Assam. The complete draft of the Supreme Court-monitored NRC was published on July 30. It included the...