WITH much fanfare, US President Barack Obama took to the White House podium to announce, as part of his administration’s action plan on climate change, a new Clean Power Plan aimed at cutting carbon emissions from electricity generation in the US, chiefly from coal-based power plants, by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Plan, comprising a set of rules proclaimed by the federal Environment Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act, seeks to shut down or drastically improve efficiencies of coal-based power stations and promote non fossil-fuel electricity generation.

THE Department of Telecom (DoT) Report on Net Neutrality, though better written than the shoddy consultation paper TRAI produced last March, ends up by ducking controversial questions and contradicting itself on what constitutes net neutrality. While endorsing net neutrality, on the issue of Zero Rating services, such as Airtel Zero and Facebook-Reliance Internet.org, the report refers them back to TRAI. It also does not address whether treating VoIP services differently from other Internet services is a violation of net neutrality or not.

MIRED by controversies and scandals, the NDA government has now secured another rare achievement. Recent disclosures, first reported in the Economist magazine, indicate that the government has taken great pains to suppress a survey on child health, conducted by the UNICEF, in collaboration with the Government of India. The Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC) was commissioned by the UPA government and covers the period between 2013 and 2014.

THE new NDA government's approach to every issue, irrespective of the problem, seems to be the same – hand it over to the private sector. Not surprisingly, the “expert” committee's review report on the ambitious National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project –which is to provide broadband rural telephony – has recommended exactly that. Instead of BSNL, virtually the only telecom company providing rural telephony today, the committee has recommended large scale induction of private players. This is in spite of their dismal record in meeting their existing rural telephony obligations.

THE 15th All India Peoples Science Congress, the bi-annual event held by the All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN), was held in Bengaluru on May 22-25, 2015. The Congress is returning to the garden city and a premier hub of science and technology (S&T) in the country after 1992 when the 3rd Congress was held on its outskirts.