-Tehelka The NDA government’s move to open more Jan Aushadhi stores ignores the multitude of issues currently plaguing them Amidst the jostling crowd at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Shahdara, Delhi, is 68-year-old Suresh Chandra, holding his medical files on one hand and prescription letter on the other. Chandra, who is a lung disease patient, moves towards the Jan Aushadhi store, situated in the hospital premises. Chandra hopes that the government-run medical...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Dehradun: Maletha village in Tehri Garhwal is very angry. Men, women and children sit on the road in dharna, demanding that a stone crushing company grandly called Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram be evicted from their village. The villagers’ problems began in February 2014 when two stone crushers arrived in Maletha with their machines. Their operations created an ear-splitting noise and belched clouds of dust that settled on crops and orchards. In August, another...

-IANS The reverse-osmosis water purifier at home seems to be a benign invention, allowing people to drink clean, healthy water. But now scientists are warning that rampant use of the RO technology could pose a serious threat to public health. One of the most popular water purifying technologies in India, the RO process is efficient in terms of filtering out toxic substances like arsenic and fluoride, especially in areas where groundwater is...

-The Hindu One of the major reasons for the fall in road accidents in the last decade coincides with the metro gradually becoming the principal artery of public transport Despite increased traffic, Delhi saw its lowest number of fatal accidents in a decade in 2014. Delhi Police data reveal that 1,595 deaths were reported (1,559 accidents) in 2014, compared to 1,754 in 2013; 1,866 in 2012; 2,110 in 2011; 2,153 in 2010;...