-The Times of India It was meant to showcase the government's new-found resolve to push the reforms agenda in order to stanch the declining growth rate and to repulse the perception of governance freeze. Instead, it ended up publicizing yet again the government's vulnerability as well as its reluctance to speed up decision making at the cost of angering allies on the eve of presidential poll.  The UPA on Thursday withdrew its...

-Reuters World food prices dropped in May for a second month in a row, hit by steep falls in dairy products, sugar and other commodities, and are likely to fall further in the coming months, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday. Food prices grabbed attention of the world leaders after their spike to record highs in February 2011 helped fuel the protests known as the Arab Spring...

In South Mumbai's upscale Malabar Hill, a neighbourhood of 6,000 people share 52 toilets, 26 for men and 26 for women. That works out to around 115 people per toilet. Nearby live some of the oldest and richest families of the city with homes where one person may have a choice of many toilets. But this is Simla Nagar, where 720 households are precariously perched on a not so wealthy slope...

An oral polio vaccine strain that cannot revert to virulence is needed Wouldn't it be nice to have a better sort of oral polio vaccine? Widespread use of the oral vaccine has brought the eradication of polio tantalisingly within reach. Since 1988 when the world embarked on an effort to wipe out the disease entirely, the number of cases has fallen by 99.8 per cent. Developed by an American scientist, Albert Sabin,...

-The Business Standard   The FAO Food Price Index fell by 4% in May Global food prices have dropped sharply in May due to generally favourable supplies, growing global economic uncertainties and a strengthening of the US dollar, a report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations said today. The FAO Food Price Index, measuring the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, fell by 4%...