-The Hindustan Times The next time you hear a knock on your door, it may turn out to be your friendly local health worker with a choice of contraceptives for you. And who will you have to thank for that? None else than health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, whose innovations in the field of population are matchless. Well, don't hold your breath just yet, this is one scheme...

-The Hindustan Times Home minister P Chidambaram on Thursday got the cabinet’s backing to nudge the Nandan Nilekani-led Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to accept biometric data collected under the National Population Register (NPR) for issuing Aadhaar numbers. The cabinet committee’s advice came in the backdrop of Chidambaram complaining to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week that the NPR project was “almost at a standstill” due to UIDAI’s refusal to accept...

-The Hindu   To provide water supply, drainage, solid waste management and street lighting  If a rural area boasts a high population — well above 5,000, sometimes as high as 20,000 — with most of its workforce in non-farm jobs, is it a village or a town? For almost 4,000 such areas, the definition is unclear: the census calls them towns, but since they have gram panchayats rather than municipal corporations, the government...

The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

A breath test to detect the deadly tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in six minutes flat has been developed in the US, with help from experts in Mumbai. Doctors from Hinduja Hospital in Mahim and the state-run JJ Hospital in Byculla have helped validate the prototype for the point-of-breath test, according to an article published in medical journal 'Tuberculosis' recently.  The test could emerge as the quickest way to screen a patient for...