Launched in Delhi on January 31, 2020, #IndiaDataPortal (https://indiadataportal.com/) is a project incubated at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, an institute within the Indian School of Business. Developed by Gramener, a data science consulting firm, IDP is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It aims to be a “one-stop open access portal for public data and visualisations in India”.<br /><br />IDP’s launch included a panel discussion on “Data and Journalism”, which was moderated by Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri. The panel comprised Ritu Kapur, co-founder of the Quint; Avik Saha, one of the founding members of Swaraj Abhiyan; Anand S, CEO of Gramener; and Avik Sarkar, visiting associate professor at the Indian School of Business.<br /><br />The conversation started with Avik Sarkar explaining why the IDP team chose to collect data on the agricultural sector as a starting point. “This is a sector which needs a lot of work, and about 50 percent of the population of our country is employed in this sector,” he said. “Today, agriculture is a sector that has a lack of credible advisory services compared to other sectors, and for that we need information available to people on the ground.”<br /><br />Ritu said IDP is vital for journalists today. “No news organisation currently has pockets deep enough to do large-scale surveys,” she pointed out. “We need credible data considering the amount of under-reporting and misreporting that has come to the fore.”<br /><br />Abhinandan asked the panel why reporting on agriculture has increased over the past few years. “I think it happened because of us — the consumers of news — and not because of news agencies or media houses,” Avik Saha responded. <br /><br />Discussing how data can be misused, Anand said, “Data can be used as a tool for confirmation…The problem is people only look for proof in data, and not for disproof.”<br /><br />The panel also discussed the credibility of data, the future of data-based journalism, the importance of agriculture in the media, and the limitations of using data to tell a story. <br /><br />Support independent media and subscribe to Newslaundry: http://bit.ly/paytokeepnewsfree<br /><br />To watch this and many more videos, click on http://www.newslaundry.com/<br /><br />Follow and engage with us on social media:<br />Facebook: https://facebook.com/newslaundry<br />Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslaundry<br />Instagram: https://instagram.com/newslaundry
