-Outlook Panaji: Activists who stop power plants, coal mining and projects like dams do not help in removing poverty from the country, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said. "There is nothing more important than removing poverty from the country. I want to ask people who protest whether their action results in removing poverty?" Chidambaram said during an interview at 'ThinkFest' event in Goa. "Poverty is the greatest polluter and a curse. There...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government should have calculated the costs of possible retaliation by other states before banning potato export from Bengal, agriculture experts have said. For now, no state has threatened a payback for the ban, clamped despite pleas from the chief ministers of Odisha and Assam after a shortage pushed up potato prices in Bengal. As the Bengal administration grapples with the problem, importers of essential foodstuff have sounded...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The National NGO Child Rights Coalition (NNCRC), an umbrella organisation of NGOs working for children, has urged the Assam government to protect the rights of children living in prisons or detention camps for illegal immigrants. These children live in prison because that is where their parents live and they have nowhere else to go. The appeal came just days after a four-member team of the NNCRC found seven children, including...

-The Hindu Although tuberculosis killed 1.3 million people across the globe in 2012 and nearly 8.6 million developed the disease, the world is on track to reach some important targets of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. According to WHO's global tuberculosis report 2013 released recently, the incidence rate has been falling, and the mortality rate since 1990 has been reduced by 45 per cent. Yet, at 37 per cent, the reduction...

-The Hindu "The most important milestone to be set at Warsaw is on climate finance," says Jayanthi Natarajan, Union Environment and Forests Minister, in an interview ahead of the climate negotiations beginning November 11. * What are your thoughts on the view that historical emissions should not play a role in deciding responsibilities under the 2015 agreement? India has consistently held the view that historical emissions are a very important pillar of issues...