-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre wants states reporting large number of road Fatalities, injuries and accidents to focus on road safety to improve the country's performance as the United Nations has set a target of reducing deaths by 50% during this decade. Five states - Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan - accounted for over 50% of the country's road deaths in 2012. The number...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today launched a housing scheme for slum dwellers in the city, ahead of the civic polls here in December. The project will be developed under the Centre's Rajiv Awas Yojana scheme and predictably, the BJD leaders present at the event chose to remain silent on this. One housing project was launched at Mahishakhala behind BJB College at a cost of Rs 46.93 crore, while another was...

-Down to Earth   This defies logic. Despite rapid economic growth, India has often been placed below sub-Saharan African countries that have very high number of malnourished children. But the government has no data to clarify its position. In the first week of September, Parliament’s Committee on Estimates criticised the government, saying: “The committee is surprised to note that in the modern era of Information and Technology, there is no recent official...

-The Hindu     Toll from foot-and-mouth disease reaches 1,485, mostly in south Karnataka Bangalore: The steep death toll among cattle from foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) could have been exacerbated by an unusually heavy rainfall this monsoon, even as an inefficient vaccination programme left thousands of animals vulnerable to the disease. While FMD (a viral infection affecting animals with ‘cloven hooves' such as cattle, deer and wild boar) is not Fatal by itself, a secondary infection...