-The Telegraph Ranchi: The lid is off a basic reason why generations of girls drop out of school, never discovering their potential. Schools, state-run or otherwise, may have a toilet, but if existing loos lack basics such as privacy or water, girls prefer to stay at home. Reason - they feel too unsafe and ashamed to answer nature's call or take care of personal hygiene during menstruation. A detailed research on life skills...

-Down to Earth Half of India's population defecates in the open. In all probability, they will continue to do so for the next 10 years By the time you read this article, some 600 million Indians must have taken that first call of nature. But for most, it must have been very unusual: to take that hesitant and humiliating step out of their homes to defecate in the open. Everyday, an...

-The Hindu Warsaw: The G77+China group of 133 countries walked out of negotiations on Loss and Damage at around 3:30 am on Wednesday morning after the rich countries refused to budge from the position that the subject should be discussed only after 2015. The US, Australia and Canada have been the most vocal and trenchant advocates against setting up a separate mechanism on Loss and Damage while the EU, though not belligerent,...

-The Times of India WARSAW: Though the ongoing climate talks has failed to bring cheer to developing countries as rich nations have, so far, not made any commitment to set aside a corpus to battle global warming, hope springs eternal for the negotiators. They are expecting that the high-level ministerial round may throw up a pleasant surprise, where developed countries would finally pledge a sum -$20-$30 billion annually - for assisting poor...

-The Hindu Warsaw: The G77+China group delivered an ultimatum to the developed countries on the issue of Loss and Damage, threatening to walk out of the Warsaw negotiations if the developed countries did not stop blocking it. The ultimatum was delivered by the G77+China negotiator Juan Hoffmeister, who is leading the talks on the issue for the developing country block, at a closed door meeting on Saturday evening, raising the stakes...