-The Indian Express Understanding the many buried stories in India’s suicide statistics A study in the British journal Lancet has found that suicide is now reaching alarming levels in India, and educated young people are particularly at risk. Suicide is all set to overtake maternal deaths as the leading cause of death among young women, and rivals road accidents as a cause of death among young men. Suicide is not a matter of...

Four of India's southern states — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnakata and Kerala — that together constitute 22% of the country's population recorded 42% of suicide deaths in men and 40% of self-inflicted fatalities in women in 2010. Maharashtra and West Bengal together accounted for an additional 15% of suicide deaths. Delhi recorded the lowest suicide rate in the country. In absolute numbers, the most suicide deaths in individuals, aged 15 years...

-The Indian Express Tribal affairs minister’s letter to states on the Forest Rights Act highlights the problems of implementation For most observers, the Forest Rights Act (FRA) is just another “welfare” law. It is often trotted out as one of those “development measures” that ought to be implemented, but isn’t. Recently, Minister for Tribal Affairs V. Kishore Chandra Deo wrote to state governments, taking them to task for tardy implementation of the...

-CNN-IBN   Shankarpura: Welcome to India's perhaps only tobacco-free village - Shankarpura in Haryana, that comes as a breath of fresh air, quite literally. While elders puffing the traditional hookah, and discussing worldly issues has been a part of Haryana's socio-cultural milieu, the village of Shankarpura chose to break away from the tradition by becoming perhaps the only village in the country which is free from tobacco.   Manpal Singh Selwal, Chairman of the Block...

London, June 11: An investigation has exposed the organised criminals who secretly trade organs for British transplant patients for as little as £4,500 (Rs 3.85 lakh). The gangs, operating in eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent, prey on the desperation of patients requiring organs and the poverty of donors who often earn less than £1,000 (Rs 85,754) from the exploitative deals. The so-called organ brokers have developed a network of corrupt officials...