-Hindustan Times London: There are 1.6 billion people living in multidimensional poverty across the world and nearly 440 million of them are in eight large Indian states, according to a new analysis using a unique index developed at the University of Oxford.   The eight Indian states that have similar number of poor as in 25 African countries are Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal. The poorest...

-PTI New Delhi: In the previous year, when Delhi was under President's Rule, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had presented a Rs.36,776 crore budget for the 2014-15 fiscal for Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party government on Thursday presented a Rs 41,129 crore budget with a major focus on education, health and transport sectors besides allocating funds to provide free wifi facility in colleges and villages. Presenting the budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia...

-ABP Live Some days back the death of Surjit Singh, who had met Rahul Gandhi a few days before he committed suicide, once again brought the focus on the tragic but unresolved issue of farmer suicides. A few days after Surjit Singh consumed sulphos tablets, another 36-year-old farmer, Baljinder Das Bairagi from Sangrur, hanged himself from a ceiling fan. He carried an outstanding loan of Rs 7-lakh. A survey done by three...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union environment ministry has refused to release bio-safety research dossiers on genetically modified mustard developed by Delhi University under review for possible commercial cultivation, activists campaigning against GM crops claimed today. The activists said the ministry had turned down their request filed under the Right to Information Act for the bio-safety dossiers containing data on environmental and toxicity studies done on the GM mustard engineered with bacterial...

-The Times of India Air pollution from respirable particulate matter (PM2.5) could be responsible for 10,000 to 30,000 premature deaths in Delhi — up to 80 deaths each day — authors of an international study released on Tuesday indicated. Scientists who conducted the study, published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, said most of these deaths were due to heart attacks and strokes, and not very many because of respiratory diseases. The...