-IPS News   New Delhi: Bhure Lal, a 33-year-old street-food vendor, has been selling his spicy ‘chaat' outside the New Delhi Railway Station for 15 years. But despite a punishing 12-hour work schedule, and a new law to protect hawkers like him, he doesn't take home enough to feed his family. More than half of Lal's weekly income from the ‘chaat', a lip-smacking pot-pourri that is particularly popular with women, is extorted by...

-Live Mint   The cost of pollution will determine effective implementation of standards It has long been suspected but never established as a comparable fact. New Delhi is a city with one of the poorest air quality in the world. New data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that in 2013 the city had a very high concentration of particulate matter of size 2.5 microns (153 micrograms/cubic metre). Thirteen of the...

-The New Indian Express   Bangalore: Water contamination is causing a major headache to officials busy tackling the acute water scarcity in most parts of the state. Many sources supplying drinking water to the affected areas have become contaminated with harmful substances such as fluoride, arsenic, iron etc. Drinking water sources in 3,207 of the 59,753 habitats in the state have been contaminated as on March 31, 2014, according to information obtained from the...

-The Business Standard   There is nothing called junk food. The problem with obesity lies with children who do not exercise enough. What is needed is for them to run and jump, and to do this they need to consume high-calorie food. So, food high in salt, sugar and fat is good for them." This is what was argued vehemently and rudely by representatives of the food industry in the committee set...

-Frontline     Significant part of economic migration is still the result of desperation rather than hard-headed economic calculation. This, in turn, affects the conditions under which workers migrate and their lives and work as well.   PERHAPS the most poignant moment in the film Peepli Live-even though the movie is really more about the media than about the socio-economic realities of India-is at the very end, when the hapless protagonist, now a former farmer...