-The Business Standard E-waste disposal cannot ignore the informal sector The deadline for the enforcement of new electronic waste (e-waste) management norms is just a month or so away. And yet, most of the sector’s stakeholders seem quite unprepared. The E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, notified almost a year ago as coming into effect from May 1 this year, require producers of electronic and white goods to take back their products...

Trying—and failing—to live on the govt’s definition of ‘not poor’ Dietetics Of Poverty     Three cups of tea, adding up to about 150 calories     Two slices of bread (100 calories)     Two pieces of kulcha with chhole (about 425 calories)     Bread and tea hardly contain any nutrients. Milk may provide some calcium.     Near-starvation diets, with hardly any vitamins or minerals, can lead to a breakdown of muscles and weight loss over a...

-AP   Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact.  India's prime minister and top EU officials are hoping their summit Friday in New Delhi helps move beyond disagreements over issues like European labor market limits and Indian duties on cars.  But health industry workers and...

-AFP Later this month, India will be removed from a dwindling list of countries where polio is considered endemic, a huge achievement made possible by people like Madara, a 76-year-old street hawker.  At a temporary immunisation camp in a slum in the northern district of Ghaziabad, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from New Delhi, he is busy at work shepherding boisterous children into queues.  All around, social workers break open tiny bottles containing a...

At a time when the outrage over the video showing Andaman’s Jarawa tribals being made to dance in front of tourists is yet to die down, the Orissa SC/ST department is parading people from aborigine tribes for visitors at a state-organised tribal fair that kicked off here on January 26. About 250 tribals, many of them from aborigine communities from across the state, have been brought as “live models” to the...