-Down to Earth   Scientists in Bihar find a plausible link between pesticides and breast cancer "There were no apparent risk factors. I had no family history of breast cancer, married early, had a baby whom I breastfed. Above all, I followed a healthy lifestyle. The only thing that could have led to my cancer could be environmental factors-exposure to pesticide residues through food and pollution," narrated Niti, a young breast cancer survivor,...

-The Hindu Bangalore is doing its bit for the desi cow as Harshini Vakkalanka discovers Bangalore: Desi cow ghee in earthen pots, fresh butter, sweetened hung curd, kalakand, basundi, rasamalai and rasagolla, kulfi, jamun rabadi, ladoo malai or motichoor ladoo; these may seem like the bane of every health-freak in the country not to mention diabetics but that's just the point. These desi cow milk sweets, made at Swarg Foods, a Bangalore-based organisation...

-The New Indian Express   Most people would have been shocked to read the year-end report that India has been ranked 63rd, much below countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a yardstick used by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to comprehensively measure global hunger. The index is calculated as an average of three indices-undernourishment, underweight children and low child mortality rate-and is measured on a...

-The Week A revolutionary farming system is working wonders in Nalanda district Nalanda: If not for an agricultural technique known as SRI (system of rice intensification), Sumant Kumar of Darveshpura in Bihar's Nalanda district would have remained a faceless farmer. In 2012, with the help of the state agriculture department, he tried out SRI on an acre that usually bore only modest yields. It worked, and Sumant got a bumper harvest. An...

-The World Bank   Policy Interventions Can Turn the Tide, Says World Bank Report WASHINGTON: A new World Bank report warns that risky behaviors -smoking, using illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, and unsafe sex- are increasing globally and pose a growing threat to the health of individuals, particularly in developing countries. The report looks at how individual choices that lead to these behaviors are formed and reviews the effectiveness of interventions...