-The Indian Express When the UPA government passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, that laid down in clear terms that the age of consent for sex is 18 years, even then activists had warned against such misuse. THE Supreme Court refused to extend the detention of the juvenile convicted in the 2012 Delhi gangrape saying it has to go by the law as it stands today. Lawmakers...

-Livemint.com In 1986, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged when McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Rome. He saw this as a threat to Italy’s culinary culture. He led a protest against the global industrialization of food, which culminated in the slow food movement. Starting in Rome, the movement is now a worldwide phenomenon. Edited excerpts from an interview at the Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong: * What are the key achievements...

-Economic and Political Weekly The importance of hand-washing in personal and public hygiene has evolved over the centuries. While the market with its countless number of soaps and hand-wash products for personal hygiene with the accompanying advertising has created a false sense of security, it is community hygiene implemented through public health measures that is really effective in the battle against disease. Lekha D Bhat (lekhabhatd@gmail.com) teaches at the Department of Social...

-IPSNews.net UNITED NATIONS: When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University, the accolade had a significant relevance to the United Nations. The Academy bestowed the honour on the British-born Deaton, 69, primarily for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.   Deaton’s research reflects some of the socio-economic issues on the U.N. agenda, including poverty alleviation, economic inequalities, consumption patterns, household...

-Outlook Scientist and longtime activist against genetically modified BT seeds, Dr. Vandana Shiva, talks about why BT has a devastating fallout. A sudden pest attack has ruined cotton crops in large parts of Punjab, bringing biotech, or BT Cotton back into focus. Farmers who used bio-fertilisers in the Malwa region of the state are said to be safe from this latest pestilence. But those growing BT cotton have lost everything. There...