-The United Nations Thirteen years after the world set the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), countries have made big strides to meet the eight anti-poverty targets by their 2015 deadline, says a United Nations report released today, which stresses that the unmet goals are still within reach, but nations need to step up their efforts to achieve them. "In more than a decade of experience in working towards the MDGs, we have learned...

-The Times of India SHIMLA: Muck generated by hundreds of hydro power projects in Himachal Pradesh is being dumped along river beds, which has disturbed the natural course of major rivers in the state. With large scale construction of houses and hotels along the banks of major rivers, especially Satluj, Beas and Parbati, even a slight change in the course of these rivers could wreak havoc, like in Uttarakhand, where the...

-PTI India however maintained that the India Patent Act was in accordance with the TRIPS Agreement & the Paris Convention The US pharma industry has expressed concern over deteriorating intellectual property Environment in India, alleging that patent rights in the country are unreasonably denied. "PhRMA remains concerned about the deteriorating intellectual property Environment in India," Mark Grayson, PhRMA spokesman told PTI. The remarks by PhRMA or Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, representing America's...

-AFP GENEVA: A freshwater shrimp, an island-dwelling lizard and a pupfish from Arizona have been declared extinct, while nearly 21,000 species are at risk of dying out, an updated "Red List" released on Tuesday showed. "The overall picture is alarming," said Jane Smart of the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN), which is behind the Red List of Threatened Species that to date has assessed 70,294 of the world's 1.82...

-PTI Tirunelveli: A German woman journalist and her colleague have been detained for trying to proceed to Idinthakarai, the hub of protests against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, and record the views of the locals, police said. The South Asian Correspondent of a German radio network and her male colleague, who were detained yesterday, planned to air a programme on the protests against KNPP. They would be allowed to go to the...