-PTI Rajkot: The consumption of bottled water in India has shown a jump of 21 per cent in last fiscal but still India is far behind as compared to global average, according to a research recently conducted by leading marketing firm IKON.  The per capita consumption of bottled water in India was at 16.20 litres during 2010-11 and jumped by almost 21 percent to 19.60 litres in 2011-12, IKON said in its...

While the country has made progress in reducing poverty, it has lagged behind in improving sanitation India has made headway in reducing poverty and giving access to drinking water for much of its population, but has lagged behind in improving sanitation, food security, maternal mortality and gender equity standards, putting it at risk of missing key targets, said the Millennium Development Goals Report 2012 released on Monday. According to the report, which...

Actual targets remain far from desired rate With one maternal death reported every 10 minutes, India is likely to miss the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) related to maternal health, a latest United Nations report says. While there is an improvement from maternal death in every six minutes in 2010 to 10 minutes now, the MDG target in this respect is unlikely to be met, the report said. At present, the Maternal Mortality...

Contrary to the claims of the UIDAI, fingerprints are a highly inappropriate tool to uniquely identify individuals. Case 1: “There are nine checks on visa nationals arriving into the U.K. [United Kingdom]. The fingerprint matching check is the most recent. It is the least reliable. It is the least effective in terms of delivering against our requirements….” So stated Brodie Clark, the former head of the United Kingdom Border Force, to a...

-The Telegraph Unesco has declared the Western Ghats a World Heritage site, capping a six-year campaign, but another Indian nomination on the “hill forts of Rajasthan” tripped because of inadequacies in documentation. The recognition for the ghats came despite a recommendation against their inclusion by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an advisory panel that assesses entries for special ecological zones. The ICUN concluded that the five states through which the...