-Deccan Herald Western Ghats are particularly rich in wild relatives of tuber crops. Tuber crops not only enrich the diet of the villagers in this region, but also possess medicinal properties to cure many ailments or at least check their incidence. The eco-nomically and socially important tropical tuber crops are cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), yams (Dioscorea alata, D.esculenta and D.rotundata), aroids which include elephant foot yam, taro, tannia,...

-AP American scientist Joshua Apte travels in an autorickshaw to present alarming findings for anyone who spends time on or near the roads in this city of 25 million. The autorickshaw lurched through New Delhi's commuter-clogged streets with an American scientist and several air pollution monitors in the back seat. Car horns blared. A scrappy scooter buzzed by belching black smoke from its tailpipe. One of the monitors spiked. Joshua Apte has alarming...

-The Hindu Tamil Nadu has come to realise in a most tragic manner the high mortality risk faced by preterm babies (those born before 37 completed weeks of gestation), and its unfinished task of saving these lives. Of the 13 neonates who died recently in district hospitals in Dharmapuri and Salem, five were preterm. Both preterm and low birth weight babies have died of the usual causes, such as respiratory...

-The Indian Express Eight years after the Sachar committee report on the condition of Muslims and creation of a Ministry of Minority Affairs, a post-Sachar evaluation committee, headed by former JNU professor Amitabh Kundu, has concluded that though a start has been made in addressing development deficits of the community, government interventions have not quite matched in scale the large numbers of the marginalised. Poverty levels among Muslims, the committee found, remained...

-The Hindu Over 95 per cent of patients coming to super-speciality hospitals are at the wrong place and have incurred hardships when they could have been treated at their neighbourhood primary care centre. A number of announcements have been made by the Central and State governments on their intent to offer Universal Health Care (UHC). These welcome developments are timely as India is now rapidly becoming one of the few countries that...