-The Times of India   CHENNAI: When traditional methods of using chemical pesticides, fogging and releasing Gambusia fish into water bodies fail to do enough to control mosquito menace, a little out-of-the-box thinking is required. Digital interventions are beginning to take over to help grapple with vector-borne diseases. The city corporation's health department is working on an app to monitor the fieldwork of 5,000 workers who visit households to eliminate mosquito breeding...

-The Financial Express   It is the urban affluent and upper middle class which is gradually warming up to the concept of branded rice. Pune: The Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board (MSAMB) is promoting rice varieties grown in the Vidarbha region under the 'Maharice' brand. In a pilot project, it recently sold around 450 quintals of such varieties and plans to sell around 1,000 tonne of the brand in one year, senior officials...

-The Hindu   ‘An offshoot of trickle-down urbanisation, census towns like Hatia and Hinjewadi can be engines of change for rural areas' Hatia, Ranchi: At the southern edge of Ranchi city lies Hatia, and not all of its residents are sure if theirs is a village or part of Ranchi city's sprawl into its surrounding rural areas. "It's still a village. The panchayat has the land records," says Santosh Majhi, standing by the side...

-The Hindu   Mumbai: Taking serious note of manual scavenging in the pilgrim town of Pandharpur here, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the State government to release Rs. 5 crore immediately to the municipal council to help deploy mobile toilets on a war footing. The government should file a compliance report by May 8. "How can you justify employing human beings to carry out manual scavenging in this day and age?...

-The Hindu A strong whistle-blower protection law in India would expose financial corruption in a way that reinforces ethical business practices In 2013, generic pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven criminal felonies for drug manufacturing fraud and agreed to cough up an unprecedented $500 million in fines. The case against Ranbaxy was significant not only for being a successful prosecution of a powerful India corporation. It also marked the triumph of Dinesh...