-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government wants to fortify not just mid-day meals in school for children, but many other staples that Indians eat. The government, after proposing to supply fortified ready-to-eat packaged meals for children in anganwadi centres, is now mulling a plan for mass fortification of several staple food items on the lines of iodine-fortified salt. Prime Minister Modi last week heard a presentation from secretaries of the ministries...

-The Times of India GURGAON: On Tuesday, Gurgaon put the brakes on cars, and accelerated into the future. It was the first instalment of the Car Free Day that the city will now observe every Tuesday starting next month. On day one itself, there were 10,000 fewer cars on the city's roads. The air, too, was much more breathable. Levels of PM 2.5 - fine pollutants emitted by vehicles - were 21...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Hindu One of the major reasons for the fall in road accidents in the last decade coincides with the metro gradually becoming the principal artery of public transport Despite increased traffic, Delhi saw its lowest number of fatal accidents in a decade in 2014. Delhi Police data reveal that 1,595 deaths were reported (1,559 accidents) in 2014, compared to 1,754 in 2013; 1,866 in 2012; 2,110 in 2011; 2,153 in 2010;...