-Business Standard Integrates climate change concerns and promotes private investment and role in forestry The NDA government has made public its draft National Forest Policy to replace the one that was crafted in 1988. Incorporating consequences of climate change but entirely ignoring one of the three forest related laws, the Forest Rights Act, the policy brings new focus to plantations, growing trees outside the forest lands  and wood industry. While the policy continues...

-The Times of India Pune: Delhi might be paying the steepest price for its air pollution with life expectancy dropping by 6.4 years while Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are likely to account for the highest number of premature deaths in India, a study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has revealed. Conducted by IITM scientists in collaboration with the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Colorado, the study is likely to...

-The Hindu Less toxic than processed and red meat. Potassium bromate, the chemical additive widely prevalent in bread and refined flour and associated with cancer, is in the same league as coffee, aloe vera, mobile phone radiation and carbon black, a key ingredient in eye-liner. It also is less toxic than processed and red meat, according to a perusal by The Hindu of the list of agents deemed potentially cancerous by the International...

-The Hindu Business Line Timely interventions through medical innovations can transform the lives of mothers and children, not simply save them A couple of years ago, I was in a primary health centre delivery room in Shivgarh and saw a beaming mother with her three-hour-old baby girl happily feeding at the breast. Three hours earlier, this contented baby was born without a cry, still, and blue in colour. Fortunately, the midwife present,...

-The Hindu The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme, which recognises the importance of clean cooking energy, is welcome. But we need to focus on issues of cash flow, awareness, availability and administration Within a fortnight of the recently announced Union Budget, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, earmarking Rs. 8,000 crore for it, with the aim of providing five crore subsidised Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)...