-PTI Limiting access to pesticides and firearms, among the most common methods of suicide globally, can help reduce the number of people taking their own lives, according to a latest WHO report. More than 800,000 people die by suicide every year, according to WHO's first global report on suicide prevention, which found that pesticide poisoning, hanging and firearms are among the most common methods of suicide globally. Evidence from Australia, Canada, Japan, New...

-The Indian Express The Modi government had recently directed all central government offices to introduce Aadhaar-based biometric attendance systems. In what could be a revolutionary step towards monitoring and tracking the work of government officials, the NDA government has launched an "attendance website" to serve as a centralised database for all central government employees. Though the website, attendance.gov.in, is still in the process of being developed, officials said it is expected to be...

-The Hindu Reason: inordinate delay in sanctioning of funds by Centre Theni (Tamil Nadu): Thousands of labourers, who registered their names with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), in rain-fed and drought-prone areas of the district are jobless due to the inordinate delay in sanctioning of funds by the Centre. The delay has not only stalled ongoing works but also affected implementation of new ones, according to officials in village...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-The Hindu Business Line   Most Indians are not aware of, or responsive to, the issue. For this, the media is squarely responsible The Ministry of Environment and Forests is now the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Including climate change as a key component in the title of the ministry is all very well, but how do we envisage taking climate change and its everyday implications to the masses? A 2011 Yale...