-The Financial Express For most consumers, ‘organic’ is probably a code for ‘safe’ or ‘residue-free’, not necessarily produce grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides. But marketers use the tag to tap into a seam of fear in some urban parents who are so anxious about health that they are willing to pay for advertising that spells ‘well-being’. A brand of ‘organic’ jaggery, for example, on the shelves of Reliance Fresh stores...

-Hindustan Times Medical Journal Lancet released a report highlighting the impact of climate change on people. The report focuses on the need for climate policies that also curb air pollution. New Delhi: Indoor air pollution was linked to over 1.24 lakh deaths across India in 2015, a report published in Lancet – a noted medical journal – has stated. This count was higher than deaths caused by pollution emanating from coal power...

-Livemint.com The government should put greater emphasis on behaviour change than construction of toilets In 2014, more than half of India’s population still practised open defecation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set his government the goal of making the country open defecation-free in five years, by the 150th anniversary of M.K. Gandhi’s birthday in 2019, by launching the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). Three years later, we are more than halfway into that period,...

-DNA   Jaipur: Rajasthan government has doubled the number of employment days for tribals in Udaipur and Baran districts under the MNERGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act) in a year. This would take the number of working days from the present mandatory 100 days to 200 days. This increase would provide guaranteed six months of employment to the tribals. The tribes that would benefit from this would be Saharia and Kharua...

-The Indian Express They are on the roads and in the fields. Farmers are worried, as are MLAs. 13 years after its anti-cow slaughter Act, Madhya Pradesh struggles with stray cows Nestled along a rocky hillock in Tikamgarh, this small village of about a thousand residents follows a fixed ritual at twilight. Before retiring for the day, the men of Dumbar herd cows wandering in the village’s lanes into a makeshift enclosure,...