-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In another proof that worsening air quality in Indian cities is affecting people's health, a study has found that Indians have 30% lower lung function as compared to Europeans. Things could get worse if immediate steps are not taken to curb vehicular emission, doctors warned. The study was conducted on 10,000 healthy, non-smoking individuals in Jaipur, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Kashmir. "We measured the Peak Expiratory...

-The Hindu     Among basic services, sanitation - public toilets in particular - ranks as national Capital's worst public service Despite an overall improvement in the Quality of Life it offers its citizens, Delhi is home to large inequalities in access to basic services, the Capital's latest Human Development Report, which was released by Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Saturday, has revealed. Seven years after coming out with its first...

-The Hindu The story today is a far cry from the 1960s, when we led the developing countries' fight against the disease Tuberculosis is very much in the news, but for all the wrong reasons - a shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug and extensive drug resistance (MDR, XDR), making treatment both cumbersome and expensive; total drug resistance (TDR) as a veritable death warrant; popularly used serological tests for diagnosis being declared worse...

-The Hindu The quality of mercy, Shakespeare would be disappointed to learn, seems highly strained in India. If Maganlal Barela, a convict on death row in Jabalpur Central Jail, is still alive, he has a newspaper report that broke the story of his imminent hanging to thank for the temporary reprieve. Barela was sentenced to death in 2011 by the Madhya Pradesh High Court for murdering his five infant daughters,...

-The Hindu Younger daughters-in-law in rural families have shorter children on average, says research There is new evidence that the unequal social status of women could play a significant - and as yet ignored - role in explaining India's "inexplicably" high under-nutrition levels. For its per capita income, India has stubbornly higher than expected levels of stunting and under-weight among children and adults - the so-called "Asian enigma" which, with countries like...