-The Hindu For vegetarians, a south Indian diet enables higher absorption of iron, says study Bengaluru: Those with a weakness for south Indian food now have a legitimate reason to gorge themselves on idlis and dosas: these dishes help in the body’s absorption of minerals such as iron and zinc. A large number of Indians have trouble absorbing iron and zinc from food. While this is mainly due to vegetarian food habits, south...

-PTI ‘North central region seeing much wetter pattern, with stronger monsoons over the last 15 years’ Washington: Monsoon has strengthened over north central India in the last 15 years, researchers from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have said, indicating a reversal in the general perception that the region has dried up in over a decade. Chien Wang, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the...

-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A summer rise in ozone, an air pollutant, over the National Capital Region should stimulate health protection measures and serve as an alert to other Indian cities, the non-government Centre for Science and Environment said today. The CSE has, using Central Pollution Control Board data, identified spikes in ozone levels persisting longer with the advance of summer. The share of days violating the pollution board's standard of 100...

-The Times of India PUNE: Maharashtra's sex ratio at birth dipped by eight points in 2016 as compared to the previous year, according to a report from the state health department. The report says the ratio of newborn girls per 1,000 boys went down from 907 in 2015 to 899 in 2016. The report, which is based on the Civil Registration System under the Birth and Death Registration Act, notes that the...