-The Indian Express New Delhi: Vegetables are the noble folk of food world, loved equally by doctors and grandmothers. Vegetarians live off them and meat-eaters are told to live off them. But in Delhi, under every crunchy leaf of radish or the shiny brinjal hide dangerous amounts of pesticides that can slowly kill, shows a new study by JNU. Pritha Chatterjee and Aniruddha Ghosal report how growers, consumers and the authorities may...

-The Indian Express It was an interesting discussion. The subject was the recent ordinance promulgated by the government of Rajasthan banning men and women without a Class X certificate from contesting zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections. To contest at the sarpanch level, a candidate will need to have passed Class VIII (Class V in tribal areas). In this state, with a particularly poor record of literacy among women, tribals and...

-Down to Earth Draft national health policy which proposes making health a fundamental right also envisages increased role of community in planning and implementing health services The Union health ministry has released the draft of the new health policy, which proposes a National Health Right Act. If implemented, the law may prove to be a milestone for health services in the country. The ministry has given the public time till February 28 to...

-Business Standard The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's land ordinance, approved by the President on Wednesday, has made several amendments to the original law rather quietly. Changes in the retrospective clause of the Bill are important but did not attract enough attention when the ordinance was approved by the Cabinet. In the original 2013 law, if compensation had not been paid for over five years to landowners or the land had not been...

-Outlook   New Delhi: Civil society, NGOs, socio- political organisations will be asked to provide volunteers to guard more than 11,000 unmanned railway crossings across the country to minimise death on tracks, Lok Sabha was told today. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said during Question Hour that a decision has been taken to publish advertisements inviting civil society, NGOs, socio-political organisations to provide volunteers to guard the unmanned railway crossings. Prabhu said 18,735 people have...