-AFP GENEVA: Air pollution by sources ranging from cooking fires to auto fumes contributed to an estimated seven million deaths worldwide in 2012, the UN health agency said on Tuesday. "Air pollution, and we're talking about both indoors and outdoors, is now the biggest environmental health problem, and it's affecting everyone, both developed and developing countries," said Maria Neira, the World Health Organization's public and environmental health chief. Globally, pollution was linked to...

-The Hindu     The fact that education matters only in the long run makes it uninteresting for political parties. But in this election, the voice of education can be heard No matter how categorically a party or candidate might comment on them, the problems of education cannot compete with those of water and electricity supply or the condition of roads. These latter problems affect the daily life of a citizen more elementally than...

-Down to Earth More than 200 people in 14 villages near Roro hill in Jharkhand are dying slowly because of an abandoned asbestos mine During a film shoot at the beautiful Roro hill in Jharkhand's Chaibasa district, the villain takes out his gun to kill a young man. The moment he shoots, onlooker Rango Deogam bursts into laughter and yells at the camera crew, "You are shooting a death scene on the...

-Live Mint   Rights laws offer an important lesson for the new government: you cannot legislate your way out of state failure It is well known that the Indian state suffers from a serious crisis of implementation capability. So deep is this crisis that it cannot even reliably perform the most routine tasks like moving money and getting employees to show up at work. So, it is hardly surprising that rights laws have...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's health ministry will tomorrow release the country's first-ever rulebook on tuberculosis that medical experts hope will help curb wrong treatment in the private sector and improve results in public-sector clinics. The Standards for TB Care in India (STCI) prescribe ways to diagnose and treat the disease, a bacterial infection that requires multiple drugs to be administered for at least six months - and up to two years...