-The Indian Express Pneumonia continues to be the leading cause of deaths among children under five years of age in India. According to the Pneumonia Progress Report 2012 brought out by the International Vaccine Access Centre and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in 2010, India recorded the highest under-five mortality from the dreaded disease. Though in the period 2000-10, the overall child mortality dipped from 9.6 million to 7.6...

-The Indian Express How can an overwhelmingly young India be well served by its ageing political leaders? The UPA government has touted its cabinet reshuffle as a much-needed infusion of youth and vibrancy. While it is easy to get caught up in government talking points, the facts speak otherwise: as India’s population is getting younger, its political elites are bucking the trend. India is increasingly exhibiting all the hallmarks of a gerontocracy...

-The Economic Times Uttarakhand has been rated top in the Planning Commission's green ranking based on quality of air and water, waste management, forest cover and climate change. The panel lists Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh as the other top four states on its Environmental Performance Index, which will serve as a measure of a state's green initiative and be linked to financial assistance from the Centre. The index was prepared...

-The Times of India Gujarat, which faced one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in the country barely 10 years ago, has emerged as the state with the largest number of Muslim cops posted in police stations, beating states with a higher proportion of the community in their population. The data, shared by the home ministry in response to an RTI query filed by TOI, shows that 10.6% of Gujarat's cops posted in...

Since early November, Delhi and large parts of North India have been enveloped in a thick, grey smog, sparking concerns and a debate on what is leading to the rising levels of air pollution. A January 2012 paper by Ridhima Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi is drawing linkages between the quality of air in the capital and agricultural practices during harvest season on farms in the neighbouring state...