-AP WASHINGTON: Millions of sex-selective abortions in India have skewed gender ratios, and the origins of the problem can be traced to American-supported population control strategies decades ago, a US congressional panel heard Tuesday. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, a staunch opponent of abortion, took up the issue at the House subcommittee on global health and human rights at a hearing titled, "India's Missing Girls." The panel has often been a forum for tough...

-The Hindu     The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...

-The Hindu     Recent studies contradict the view that emissions from cell phone cause irreparable damage to health Chennai: Recent studies in institutions across the world have contradicted reports of radiation from cell phones and their towers damaging the eggs of sparrows, and thereby contributing to their reducing numbers. In the last two years, universities in Kerala, Assam and several Indian and international conservation agencies have raised concerns about the decreasing number of sparrows...

-The Economic Times In the leaky system of welfare delivery, databases are the newest valve that governments are installing to ensure that benefits reach those-and only those -they are intended for. Since December 2012, for instance, the government of Madhya Pradesh has been appending on to the Centre's Socio Economic and Caste Census a host of household-level data: bank account numbers, NREGA card numbers, welfare entitlements, land ownership, whether their house is...

-The Telegraph Jorhat: The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India, will implement its CSIR 800 mission at Kaliabor in Nagaon district. The council, which is the largest publicly funded Research and development institute in the country, in a change of role has launched CSIR 800 to give a better quality of life to 800 million people of India through scientific and technological intervention. The mission will be launched in 28 clusters of...