-The Telegraph New Delhi: Olive Ridley turtle populations mass nesting on Odisha's coast now appear stable after what seemed like alarming portents a decade ago, but new ports could pose fresh threats, a senior turtle biologist said today. The increasing numbers of turtles inadvertently caught by fishing trawlers and found dead on Odisha's beaches during the 1990s had led some scientists to suggest a sharp decline in the populations of Olive Ridley...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: India is preparing to give mobile phones to each female member of a household, who has worked for 100 days in 2012 under a rural employment guarantee scheme run by the government, as per an internal presentation of the telecom department. If implemented, this would be the latest sop the government is planning to woo a population ahead of a slew of state polls leading up to...

-The United Nations A United Nations online survey launched today seeks to provide insight into how to reduce risk and help persons with disabilities around the world cope with and prepare for disaster events. The first-ever survey of its kind, produced by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and partners, focuses on issues such as the ability to protect oneself and having sufficient time to evacuate before a potential disaster....

-Down to Earth   Despite high cost of treatment, private sector still takes care of 80 per cent of all outpatient care and about 60 per cent of all inpatient care A study on healthcare costs in India has reaffirmed what everyone knows-that private hospitals are not affordable for the common man. Getting treatment in these hospitals is at least 20 times costlier than the healthcare provided in district government hospitals, reveals the...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: Seedbeds are not yet ready in vast stretches of Bengal's rice bowl because of poor rainfall, raising the prospect of a slump in production and showing up the inability of catchy slogans alone in making farming less of a gamble in the monsoon. Rainfall in the four major rice-producing districts of Bengal till Monday was around 50 per cent less than the normal average, officials in the agriculture department...