-Outlook   The secret behind the Ganga’s ability to self-rejuvenate its waters continues to elude discovery In 2009, when C.S. Nautiyal, now the director of Lucknow’s National Botanical Research Institute, spiked a fresh Ganga water sample with an infectious strain of Escherichia coli to test the Ganga’s reported self-healing qualities, he found that the bacteria lasted no longer than three days. He repeated the experiment with a 16-year-old sample of Ganga...

-Reuters   After Indians migrate from rural to urban areas, the longer they live in a city the worse they score on measures of cardiac health and diabetes risk compared to those who remained in rural areas, according to an Indian study. Body fat, blood pressure and fasting insulin levels -- a measure of diabetes risk - all increased within a decade of moving to a city, and for decades after, blood...

-The New York Times   India has 1.2 billion people, among them bankers, gurus, rag pickers, billionaires, snake charmers, software engineers, lentil farmers, rickshaw drivers, Maoist rebels, Bollywood movie stars and Vedic scholars, to name a few. Humanity runneth over. Except in one profession: India is searching for a hangman. Usually, India would not need one, given the rarity of executions. The last was in 2004. But in May, India's president unexpectedly rejected...

-BBC   A court in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has sentenced 10 people to death for killing a young couple who married against their parents' wishes. Vijaya, 18, and her husband, Udai Pal Singh, were killed by her family after they found out about the marriage, the court in Etah district heard. The groom's brother was also killed. India's Supreme Court recently said so-called honour killers should face the death penalty. It...

A dalit chief minister in Mayawati has not changed the deep-seated caste bias in schools of Uttar Pradesh. In 40% schools of Shahjehanpur, Badaun and Pilibhit districts, teachers do not taste the mid-day meal food and students refuse to eat it since the cooks belong to lower caste. The rot in MDM in these three districts is not confined to caste bias alone. It has also been found that in schools...