-IPS News CHINTOOR, India- Laxman, a 10-year-old Koya tribal boy, looks admiringly at a fenced-in vegetable patch behind his home in southern India's Andhra Pradesh state. Velvety-green and laden with vegetables, the half-acre patch is where Laxman's family gets their daily quota of nutritious food. But one day soon it will disappear under several feet of water, thanks to the Polavaram multipurpose project - a 45-metre-high, 2.32-km-long mega dam currently under construction...

-The Guardian Universal healthcare is often presented as an idealistic goal that remains out of reach for all but the richest nations. That's not the case, writes Amartya Sen. Look at what has been achieved in Rwanda, Thailand and Bangladesh Twenty-five hundred years ago, the young Gautama Buddha left his princely home, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in a state of agitation and agony. What was he so distressed about?...

-PTI A post card campaign will be launched from tommorrow by some city-based activists against the Centre's proposal to make changes in the MNREGA scheme which will affect the poor people. As per the plan, around 1,000 letters will be sent to the PMO everyday till May 1, asking the government not to bring any changes in the scheme. "The NDA government proposed a 15 per cent reduction in the budget allocation...

-The Hindu The Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award 2014 sought to recognise projects that work towards improving the urban conditions of communities in Delhi We know what's going wrong, and we ask the right questions; questions which crop up while our car drives down narrow roads with broken street lights, landfills spilling over with waste we have created from nothing, and slums we cannot really imagine the insides of. Our city is...

-The Tribune Sangrur (Punjab): The number of patients facing respiratory problems has gone up in the area these days. The trend is being attributed to burning of paddy stubble in the fields by farmers. Doctors say the number of patients suffering from throat infections, allergic bronchitis, productive cough, asthma, itching and burning in eyes has doubled these days. Despite a ban on burning paddy stubble, around 75 per cent of the paddy...