Special Report: Do bank lockers offer the ultimate security for your valuables?

 The recent Punjab National Bank locker heist in Sonipat raises questions about security measures.

More than a decade ago, bank lockers were the ultimate safety boxes for people to store their most valuable items. But with the increasing techno-heists and lackadaisical security measures provided by banks, these lockers may not be as safe as they once were. Also, the bank does not take any responsibility for your lost items and hence are not liable to compensate you, in case your locker is robbed.

The dramatic heist at the Sonipat branch of Punjab National Bank last month has once again raised the question about whether bank lockers can be trusted with your valuables.  Demonstrating astonishing daring, a gang of thieves dug a 77-foot tunnel to get into the main locker vault. The perpetrators cleaned out jewellery and cash worth crores from 89 lockers in the vault.

Why was ‘Ebola-free’ survivor quarantined in India after viral traces in his semen?

Traces of Ebola in semen is low risk but the authorities are taking no chances. 

A man in India has been quarantined after his semen sample tested positive for Ebola. This man had been in Liberia, was infected with Ebola, got horribly sick and survived. He had the same Ebola-free documentation that all survivors get on release from the hospital, which indicates their blood no longer harbours the virus. Unfortunately for him this wasn’t enough to get him through airport security in New Delhi.

Opinion: How can Rahul Gandhi stop being a public relations disaster? He should get married

The Gandhi scion cannot succeed in politics until he diverts the nation's attention to his personal life.

There is no bigger public relations disaster in this country than Rahul Gandhi. If there was any hope for him, he threw it all away by coming across as inept in an infamous interview with Arnab Goswami weeks before the 2014 general election. Rahul Gandhi’s image of a daft young boy who refuses to grow up has stuck, and stuck so badly that even serious columnists call him “pappu”.

Straight Talk: Modi Myths Vs Hard Facts For India

While the Prime Minister is now exhorting the nation to set new standards in sanitation, his own record in Gujarat leaves much to be desired.

Offices of power are often breeding grounds of indestructible myths. And since the flavour of the current Indian season is Gujarat, focus is bound to be on this ‘model’ laboratory where Prime Minister Narendra Modi perfected the alchemy of success.

Like the legendary King Midas whose touch turned everything into gold, Modi possesses the uncanny ability of turning anything he propounds into a national crusade: whether it is Sardar Patel’s statue or the nation’s state of sanitation.

Abortions In India: A Question Of Who And How?

A proposal to let Ayush practitioners do abortions sets off a spirited debate.

A final decision is still awaited, but the proposal is fraught in controversy. The Union health ministry under the new BJP-led government wants to allow nurses, midwives and practitioners of ayurveda, unani, siddha and homoeopathic medicine (Ayush) to perform abortions using both medical and surgical methods. This means medics with little or no training in modern surgical practice will be performing operations that could involve life-endangering situations. Many in the medical fraternity are alarmed; they take consolation only in the fact that the ministry has elicited people’s views on its website.

How safe are you? Antibacterial Chemical in Soaps, Toothpastes, Cosmetics can Damage Liver, Cause Cancer

An antibacterial agent commonly used in household products can cause cancer and damage the liver, researchers warn.

In a study reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, prolonged exposure to triclosan led to the development of liver fibrosis and cancer in laboratory mice.

"Triclosan's increasing detection in environmental samples and its increasingly broad use in consumer products may overcome its moderate benefit and present a very real risk of liver toxicity for people, as it does in mice, particularly when combined with other compounds with similar action," professor Robert H. Tukey, from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said in a news release.

India Worst Slave Country, Says Global Slavery Index

More than 14 million people in India are estimated to live in modern slavery, according to a new index on global slavery that ranks the country first out of 167 countries based on the number of people subject to abuse such as forced labor, servitude or sexual exploitation.

The other countries with the highest numbers of people in modern slavery are China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand. Together with India they account for 71% of the estimated 35.8 million people in modern slavery, says the 2014 Global Slavery Index, a report produced by global human rights organization the Walk Free Foundation. It defines modern slavery as “one person possessing or controlling another person in such a way as to significantly deprive that person of their individual liberty.”

Focus: How to Know the Gold You Buy in India Is Real?

Shalini Goel, a housewife, rushed to sell her old jewelry and small pieces of yellow metal in Delhi’s jewelry market as prices for gold soared last year, confident of getting a decent price.

But the jeweler offered less than what she had paid for them. The reason? The jewelry  she bought was “not all gold, it lacked in purity,” the dealer said.

The adulteration of gold isn’t new in India but a recent statement by India’s leading precious metals refiner that most of the scrap gold it receives does not meet the necessary levels of purity has prompted fresh warnings to consumers.