-Livemint.com Prices of pulses have been consistently on a rise for past few months, forcing the government to announce a number of measures to check hoarding New Delhi: Why are the prices of pulses rising? Will they stabilize anytime soon? The prices have been rising steadily over the last few months. Inflation in lentils stood at 46% in November, after hitting 42% in October, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers...

-The Hindu Business Line And worse still, to favour urea producers over decontrolled fertiliser units in gas allocation, exacerbating the nutrient imbalance The manner in which gas is allocated within the fertiliser sector smacks of arbitrariness. The Centre gives a uniform subsidy to all manufacturers, including those of decontrolled complex fertilisers, under the Nutrient Based Scheme (NBS) . Why, then, does it use a different yardstick for allocation of gas to manufacturers of...

-The Indian Express "Why don't you people take credit of cleaning Delhi air? You could enumerate the steps to be taken and why you are asking the court to do it," the Supreme Court bench hearing the PIL said. A ban on registration of diesel SUVs and high-end vehicles with engine capacity of over 2000 cc for an initial period of three months, strict curbs on diesel vehicles which are over 10...

-The Indian Express   The odd-even car proposal is being enforced in Delhi without any evidence or cost-benefit analysis    Mahatma Gandhi had said, “Action in the absence of knowledge can be dangerous and worse than no action at all”. This sage advice is ignored by most Indians. In the face of a serious pollution problem prevalent in most Indian cities, especially the smaller towns, we pretend that it is only the people...

-The Hindu Chennai: Completely unprepared for disasters: the hospitals in Chennai — private as well as government — were particularly vulnerable, improvising solutions as the situation developed. As water levels rose, Chennai saw every single system associated with modern life abysmally fail —houses collapsed, roads caved in, communication networks went down, sewage pipelines were wrecked, and carcasses floated on roads. Patients in government and private hospitals across the city took a beating. Completely...