-Reuters Tobacco inflicts huge damage on the health of India's people and could be clocking up a death toll of 1.5 million a year by 2020 if more users are not persuaded to kick the habit, an international report said on Thursday. Despite having signed up to a global treaty on tobacco control and having numerous anti-tobacco and smoke-free laws, India is failing to implement them effectively, leaving its people vulnerable to...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government is working on a new index based on the Consumption pattern of rural landless labour to fix wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a move that is set to result in slower annual wage hike increases under the government's flagship social welfare programme. Rural wages under MGNREGA are at present based on the consumer price index for agricultural labourers (CPI-AL), which...

-FAO Direct economic costs of $750 billion annually - Better policies required, and "success stories" need to be scaled up and replicated Rome: The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report. Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources is the first...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government today announced a scheme to allow big private investors to directly procure farm produce - a segment that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee could not liberate from the stranglehold of the Forward Bloc. The scheme titled Brihat Krishak Bazar Yojana, which loosely translates into mega farmer market programme, seeks to "connect the local market to high-growth demand centres" and weed out middlemen. The project will allow private developers to...

-The Hindu Absence of safe cycle tracks and lack of pavement networks have pushed people to motorised transport Across the world, in the wake of the fuel crisis and environmental challenges, cities are increasingly paying attention to bicycling and walking - non-motorised modes of transport (NMT). As studies show, if 5 per cent of the trips made in cities across the world shift from car to NMT, the savings in terms of...