-The Times of India India won't enhance its pledge of reducing emissions intensity of its economy at the Doha round of climate talks, which will be held between November 26 and December 7. The Cabinet on Thursday cleared the red-lines for Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan and her team of negotiators for the UN talks. With the European Union (EU) shifting the goal post yet again for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol's second phase...

-The Economic Times Get ready for an era of widespread droughts, super storms, flash floods, excessive rainfall, high food prices, higher levels of migration and higher outlays to survive extreme weather. The events of the past year make it clear that this is no longer a dire warning. Climate scientists predict extreme weather will become more common in the coming years if the world doesn't act decisively to address climate change. Yet, governments...

-Agence-France Presse Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that the country's public health system had "collapsed" in a blunt assessment of his government's failure to extend a social safety net for the poor. Mr Ramesh, known as a maverick with often outspoken views, stressed that 70 per cent of spending on health was out of people's own pockets, making it the single most important reason for indebtedness in rural areas. "We all...

-The Hindu A drastic reduction in efficacy seen in the infants during the one-year follow-up period The results of the Phase III trial of the malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01 are greatly disappointing. The efficacy of the vaccine in preventing clinical and severe malaria in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks is much less than what was expected. In fact, the level of protection offered is nearly half of what was reported last year...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...