The Centre has approved the first legally tenable import of electronic waste for responsible recycling, angering environmental groups who say millions of kilograms of domestic e-waste is recycled hazardously. The environment and forest ministry has approved the import of 8,000 tonnes of e-waste by Attero Recycling, a company that has set up an integrated recycling plant for safe extraction of metals near Roorkee. India generates nearly 400,000 tonnes of domestic...

Woman dies in Mahabubnagar  HYDERABAD: The swine flu virus, which was hitherto confined to a few Cities, claimed its second victim in Mahabubnagar district on Thursday as the disease spread fast to new areas. A suspected patient was quarantined in Guntur. According to information reaching here, Saritha of Peddapur village in Veldanda mandal in Mahabubnagar district, died at a private hospital in Hyderabad in the early hours on Thursday. Saritha...

Is the government trying to shirk its responsibility of providing a social security net even as it contemplates a right to food act? In a move that could undercut the very logic of UPA’s much-touted right to food Act, the Planning Commission has recommended that the government do away with the public distribution system (PDS) and begin cash-for-food schemes instead. Running counter to the logic of the much successful mid-day meal...

KEY TRENDS   • Suicide by self-employed persons in agriculture as a percentage of total suicides at the national level stood at 15.6 percent in 1996, 16.3 percent in 2002, 14.4 percent in 2006, 13.7 percent in 2009, 11.9 percent in 2010, 10.3 percent in 2011, 11.4 percent in 2012 and 8.73 percent in 2013. Suicides committed in the farming sector (by farmers plus agricultural labourers) as a proportion of total suicides in India was 9.4 percent in...

KEY TRENDS   • As per the 2019 Global Hunger Index report, neighbouring countries such as China (GHI score: 6.5; GHI rank: 25), Sri Lanka (GHI score: 17.1; GHI rank: 66), Myanmar (GHI score: 19.8; GHI rank: 69), Nepal (GHI score: 20.8; GHI rank: 73), Bangladesh (GHI score: 25.8; GHI rank: 88) and Pakistan (GHI score: 28.5; GHI rank: 94) have outperformed India (GHI score: 30.3; GHI rank: 102) *13    • As per the 2018 Global Hunger Index report,...