Reports

Taxi drivers in Mumbai may now have an additional task on their hands apart from ferrying passengers ― keeping the police informed about any suspicious activity. Taxi drivers, however, feel they will now be harassed more by the police. The Mumbai police is planning this initiative as part of its Alert Mumbaikar campaign to keep a tab on the movement of suspicious people in the city. The police in Mumbai want to emulate the practice followed by their counterparts in the Gulf countries where taxi...

Three out of four people with mental health conditions in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to needed mental health treatment. Even in high-income countries, this figure is relatively high at 35-50 percent, according to a WHO study. People with severe mental health conditions also are less likely to receive treatment for physical health conditions. People with schizophrenia are 40 per cent less likely to be hospitalised for ischaemic heart disease, compared with people without...

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and Madagascar's Ministry of the Environment and Forests have declared the Nosivolo River as the country's seventh Ramsar site. It is the first river in Madagascar to receive this designation. Situated in a rich wetland area in the eastern part of Madagascar, ‘Rivière Nosivolo et affluents’ (358,511 ha; 20°03’S 48°07’E) comprises 130 km of main river system along which flowing water, lakes, pools and irrigated lands spread throughout 200 km, including 62 inland...

Humanitarian medical aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has stopped its mental health services in Kashmir due to increasing violence and a round-the-clock curfew. Kashmir has been rocked by public protests for the last three months. MSF teams have had no access to the hospitals to continue conducting the counselling sessions in view of the strict curfew is in place in several parts of Jammu and Kashmir state for close to a week. No person without a valid curfew pass is allowed...

A magnitude-6.3 earthquake rocked the Hindukush region of Afghanistan late Friday night. Tremors were also felt in neighbouring Pakistan and India. This was followed close on its heels with another 5.2 quake in Indonesia. The moderate-intensity quake hit the Hindukush region at around 19:21:13 UTC Friday (00:51 hrs Indian Standard Time (IST) on Saturday), the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The IMD said the tremors were felt in several parts of north India, especially in Jammu and...

Hershey, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the US, is lagging behind other companies in taking steps to ensure decent working conditions in its supply chain, a report has said. The company has even been linked to child labour. The report, titled 'Time to Raise the Bar: The Real Corporate Social Responsibility for the Hershey Company', said that Hershey dominates 42.5 per cent of the US chocolate market, even though it lags behind every major competitor in terms of programmes...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that Turkey failed to protect the life of journalist and human rights activist Hrant Dink has been welcomed by press freedom and human rights organisations around the world. The ECHR on Tuesday held Turkey guilty of failing to protect Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink when authorities knew his assassination was imminent, and of then failing to adequately investigate his murder. The court said in its ruling, "None of the three authorities informed...

Those who use their cellphone to talk about news of the day or even to express opinions about issues, are more likely to be civically and politically engaged, a study by a communications expert has revealed. The study was conducted by Scott Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, US, and the study’s lead author. The co-author was Nojin Kwak, an associate professor in the university's Department of Communication Studies. Among the control variables...

Nectar, a symbol of well-being – the honey that millions buy believing it is pure, natural and healthy - is contaminated with high levels of antibiotics, fed to bees and is bad for our health, a leading environmental organisation in India has found. The findings are from a new study conducted by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE) Pollution Monitoring Laboratory, which had earlier tested colas for pesticides and toys for poisonous chemicals. The findings had shocked...

The brain’s right hemisphere is not involved in the initial processes of reading in Arabic, due to the graphic complexity of Arabic script. Therefore reading acquisition in Arabic is much harder in comparison to English, researchers have concluded. This has been shown in a series of studies that were carried out at the Department of Psychology and the Edmond J Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa. These studies have been published in the...