-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government touted petrol as rich man's fuel to stop subsidy. But a latest survey shows 62% of the fuel flowing into the market is consumed by the aam aadmi's sawari - two-wheelers - while about 2% is being sold loose by people to earn their livelihood in remote villages and coastal areas. The survey, conducted by Nielsen for the oil ministry's think-tank - Petroleum...

-The Hindu Researchers at IIT-Madras have developed a hybrid solar-powered desalination plant that can serve areas suffering from severe drinking water shortage but have sea or brackish ground water. A solar photovoltaic panel is dovetailed to a power grid or a backup diesel generator that will power up during periods of weak sunshine and at night and keep producing water through a reverse osmosis plant. When the sun shines, the RO...

-The Economist MID-AFTERNOON in Delhi, and a red blob looms in the haze. The sun barely illuminates the city. A yellow-green smog hangs low. Even indoors, fuzzy halos of dust and smoke surround lamps. Those foolish enough to be out jogging, or compelled to stand at junctions directing traffic, complain of shortness of breath, migraines, clogged lungs. Newspapers are crammed with articles about asthma, wheezing children at clinics, an epidemic of...

-The United Nations More than a decade after it was classified as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans,’ the UN health agency today classified diesel engine exhaust as ‘carcinogenic to humans.’   The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organization (WHO), announced the re-classification today, after a week-long meeting of international experts, and based its decision on sufficient evidence that exposure is associated with an increased risk...

Johannesburg, June 13 (ANI): The World Health Organisation's (WHO) cancer research agency classified diesel engine exhaust as cancer-causing on Tuesday, and urged action to reduce human exposure to it. In 1988, the IARC had classified diesel exhaust as "probably" carcinogenic. "Diesel engine exhaust causes lung cancer in humans," News24 quoted Christopher Portier, chair of a working group at the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), as saying.   The UN body said...