-The Hindu There is reason to be optimistic about the U.N. report on disability rights, but there is also disappointment at its failure to make the poverty connection The disability movement has waited anxiously for the report of the high level panel on post-2015, formed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, which was released in May. This document is expected to set the tone for the Secretary General's report on...

-The Times of India The Parliament's monsoon session is only about a month away. That the Union cabinet has yet taken the ordinance route to implement the national food security Bill signals the scam-tainted UPA government's desperation to woo voters before the next general elections. But the hope that expanding what is already one of the world's largest food security programmes will boost political fortunes is hallucinatory. The exchequer is already...

-The United Nations The world experienced "unprecedented high-impact climate extremes" between 2001 and 2010 and more national temperature records were broken during that period than in any other decade, according to a United Nations report launched today. The report, The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Extremes, says the first decade of the 21st century was the warmest for both hemispheres and for both land and ocean temperatures since measurements began in...

-The United Nations Without fresh ideas to address rapid urbanization, the number of people living in slums lacking access to basic infrastructure and services such as sanitation, electricity, and health care may skyrocket from one billion at present to three billion by 2050, the United Nations today reported. That wake up call is one of several alarm bells sounded in the UN World Economic and Social Survey 2013, which was launched today...

-The Telegraph Lucknow: Schoolchildren near Badrinath doodled tidal waves, broken houses and carcasses when asked recently to draw whatever they wanted. A health worker in the same district recalled a mother going repeatedly to the bank of a pond near her home in search of her two children feared dead 15 days ago. Another woman says she is having nightmares about being "engulfed by tidal waves any time" since losing her husband and...