-The United Nations Elephant poaching levels are the worst in a decade and recorded ivory seizures are at their highest levels since 1989, according to a report published today by the United Nations-backed convention on endangered species. “We need to enhance our collective efforts across range, transit and consumer states to reverse the current disturbing trends in elephant poaching and ivory smuggling,” the Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered...

-The Hindu Magsaysay award winner and the chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Dr. Shantha Sinha, on Saturday called for conducting more studies and research towards evolving strong policies to protect the rights of children between 14 and 18 years old. Dr. Sinha said that children in that age group are very vulnerable, with many of them getting married and having at least two to three...

-The Hindu The outcome document or the Rio+20 text — adopted after an informal and protracted debate by 191 member-nations, — took shape on the basis of consensus for its adaptation on Friday, even as the leading spirits behind the document conceded that it was a “compromise.” Yet the much fought-over document, ‘Future we want,’ carries hope for the humanity and an assurance not to go back on the principles agreed upon...

-The Telegraph A US government report has painted a gloomy picture of human Trafficking in the Northeast. The US state department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, released by secretary of state Hillary Clinton yesterday, said there had been a rise in women from the region being subjected to “servile marriages” in states with low female-to-male child sex ratios such as Haryana and Punjab. According to the report, girls from the Northeast are also...

The government will soon come out with an ambulance code to check the practice of vans and goods vehicles being turned into makeshift and ill-equipped ambulances that pose a risk to patients’ lives and limbs. By the end of this month, a committee that includes doctors is expected to finalise the draft of the national ambulance code, which will specify requirements from design to equipment to personnel. (See chart) “Most ambulances in...