-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: A new study says that high particulate matter (PM) pollution reduces life expectancy by 3.2 years for 660 million Indians in polluted urban conglomerates, including Delhi, which means a loss of 2.1 billion life years. "The loss of more than two billion life years is a substantial price to pay for air pollution," says the study done by researchers at Chicago University, Yale University and Harvard University."This...

The Publics and Policies Programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in partnership with Goa Foundation and the Inclusive Media for Change is holding deliberations on “Permanent Fund Model for Ethical Mining: Land, Livelihoods and Intergenerational Equity” starting with a one-day conference on Feb 18 at India International Centre, New Delhi. The debate will continue on the im4change website. The idea is to discuss natural resources extraction...

-The Hindu Tropical diseases have often been neglected by pharmaceuticals because the size of the drug market is smaller, people have lower incomes and companies are uncertain about IPR January marked an important breakthrough in the fight against tropical diseases. Researchers and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Delhi found a drug candidate that prevented TB and malaria pathogens from infecting human blood cells. It is not just that...

-Business Standard The authority will have the powers to regulate waste management and conduct studies regarding environment and ecology The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has invited consultants to redraw the green laws of the country following up on the T S R Subramanian committee report. The consultants to be hired through a bid will help the government draw up an umbrella environmental law, which will subsume the existing legislations, as recommended...

-DNA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, popularly knowns as NREGA, is the most romantic and largest development project in human history. It is extremely popular and invited widespread hatred. It embodies remarkable scope for alienated people and effortless corruption for powerful people at the lower level. The amount spent on it over the last nine years is about Rs3.50 lakh crore. The average number of jobs generated per year...