-BBC   India has "never been closer" to wiping out polio, India's health minister has declared as he marked World Polio Day. There have been no new cases for more than nine months, making it the longest polio-free period since the global eradication campaign was launched. The only case reported this year was in the state of West Bengal in January. There were 39 cases reported over a similar period in 2010. India is one...

-PTI   The Union cabinet today approved the recommendations of the Majithia wage boards allowing an increase in salaries and allowances that will benefit over 40,000 newspaper employees, including journalists. The revised wage will be applicable with effect from July 1, 2010, while other allowances, such as those for transport, house rent and hardship, shall be effective from the date of notification in the gazette, labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge said. The revised pay scale...

-IANS   With harsh wintry conditions sapping the juice out of Himachal Pradesh's fruit production this season, potatoes in the picturesque Lahaul Valley have been among the few crops that have seen an increase in production. "This year Lahaul's seed potato varieties have a bumper crop after two consecutive crop failures. The weather remained congenial throughout the season," Amar Chand Dogra, managing director of the Lahaul Seed Potato Growers Cooperative Marketing Ltd, told...

-The Economist   The world’s population will reach 7 billion at the end of October. Don’t panic IN 1950 the whole population of the earth—2.5 billion—could have squeezed, shoulder to shoulder, onto the Isle of Wight, a 381-square-kilometre rock off southern England. By 1968 John Brunner, a British novelist, observed that the earth’s people—by then 3.5 billion—would have required the Isle of Man, 572 square kilometres in the Irish Sea, for its standing...

Four days after The Indian Express reported how, in at least 12 instances, Team Anna member Kiran Bedi raised inflated air fare invoices to overcharge her host NGOs and institutions, Bedi announced today that the “balance amounts” were being returned “forthwith”. “Foundation trustees have passed resolution directing me (to) travel strictly as per invite. This leaves no room for discretion...Trustees have instructed travel agent to return the balance amounts forthwith,” she...