-The Hindu Switching to renewable energy sources in the country's midday meal programme will save millions of rupees. But only a few kitchens are doing anything about it, says the author. This is a story of facts and figures and sheer size. Of an auditorium-sized room dense with hot steam from cooking. Of seven tonnes of cooked rice and four tanker-loads of steaming sambar that needed 70 pairs of hands for cutting...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Defacement and corrosion of railway tracks by night soil-costing the exchequer crores-might soon be a thing of the past. All new coaches inducted into the trains run by Northern Railway will now come fitted with bio-toilets. After the successful run of bio-toilets installed in Nizamuddin-Indore Inter-City train, the railways has decided to install such toilets in all trains maintained by the Delhi division. Top sources said...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: Ever wondered why the country is fast losing its forest cover? The simple answer is that large tracts of forest land are being handed over to public and private agencies in the name of development projects. Digest this: According to recent data acquired through RTI from the ministry of environment and forests by a group of environmentalists, the extent of forest land being diverted across the country...

-PTI CHANDIGARH: Punjab government has chalked out an ambitious Rs 1,900 crore plan for the implementation of the " Greening Punjab Mission" with the target to increase the forest area from 7 to 15 per cent in next seven years. Under this ambitious mission, 40 crore saplings are to be planted on various places across the state, forest and wildlife preservation minister, Surjit Kumar Jyani, said in a release here. Under the...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: Safe drinking Water for all is a common promise in the manifestos of all political parties. Yet, villagers in North Karnataka are drinking Water with high arsenic content, said a Comptroller and Auditor General report released on Thursday. Though the National Rural Drinking Water Mission looked into the issue, it made a conscious effort to keep itself away from the high-cost treatment technologies to deal with arsenic...