-Scroll.in The ‘Plastic Man of India’ has found a way to reuse plastic Waste and to make durable roads. A 73-year-old retired chemistry professor from the Thiagarajar Engineering College in Madurai was on Thursday named as one of the 73 recipients of the Padma Shri, the government’s fourth highest civilian honour. Rajagopalan Vasudevan is known as the “Plastic Man of India” for devising an innovative way of disposing of plastic Waste...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Even when the winter sky appears blue, parts of Delhi now have smog-like air quality. If you live in an industrial or peripheral area like Jahangirpuri or Anand Vihar, you are breathing heavily polluted air every day. Last year, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) added many new air quality monitors, so that now there is one every 7-8km. Data from this dense network shows not only...

-Newsclick.in NFHS–4 Survey revealed little improvement in key health indicators in the last ten years. Adivasis and Dalits are the social categories who are most deprived of basic health facilities among others, reveals the latest NFHS – 4 survey . The children belonging to SC, ST castes are suffering from under nutrition, indicating that these are the people at the bottom end of receiving development and welfare policies being implemented in the...

-The Hindu Many States have initiated ‘reforms’ of the public distribution system that are hurting millions of people India’s public distribution system (PDS) is in danger of being derailed in several States across the country. Recent disruptions of the PDS have taken different forms, from compulsory biometric authentication to so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT). The consequences are alarming, but tend to go unreported. Biometric mix-ups Jharkhand is a prime example of this problem. By...

-Down to Earth The report emphasises the need to normalise menstruation by looking at behaviour, infrastructure, politics and perception In an aim to make India open defecation-free by 2019, many aspects of sanitation have been undermined, such as usage, maintenance and water availability. A 2015 report by Dasra, a Mumbai-based philanthropy foundation and the Bank of America highlights another key aspect ignored when it comes to sanitation. According to the report based on data...