Thursday, September 07, 2017

Health Alert: Your Protein Shake Could Be Harming Your Fitness

Fake supplements dominate the market. When my father first started working out and weight training he did so at home. I used to sit on the couch and laugh (not something I'm proud of). He would then challenge me to do an exercise and I would be able to do it quite easily. I would then promptly go back to the couch. Then I went to college in Kochi, and while I was there, he continued to work out and even joined a gym.

Journalists Writing In Indian Languages Face Greater Risks Than Those In The English Media

Vulnerable, with much less visibility and protection. The vast majority of Indian journalists killed on the job in the last 25 years have been Indian language journalists, as was Gauri Lankesh, the fiery woman journalist shot dead in her house in Bengaluru on Tuesday night.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

How Akhila became Hadiya – and why her case has reached the Supreme Court?

A young woman adopted Islam, defying her Hindu family. The case has roiled Kerala.

It is called Devi Krupa – the blessings of the goddess. But inside the modest single-storeyed house in TV Puram village in Kerala’s Kottayam district, a young woman has been confined against her wishes, on the orders of Kerala High Court. Outside the house, six policemen stand guard round-the-clock.

Will the Aadhaar Act Withstand a Constitutional Challenge?

Is it time to change tactics with regard to privacy and Aadhaar? It seems likely that the Act will be upheld as constitutional, when looked at whether it falls foul of our fundamental right to privacy.

Telangana has a restaurant for vultures and it might bring the species back from extinction

Indian vultures are dying out because of food scarcity and a drug called diclofenac. In Penchikalpet, a slow increase in numbers feeds hope.

It’s an experiment that’s filling India’s environmentalists with hope. Since 2013, the imposing Pala Rapu cliff in a remote corner of Telangana’s Penchikalpet forest range has become the site of an experiment that has helped restore a local colony of critically endangered long billed vultures. A vital part of the project: a “restaurant” for the birds.

Oppressive personal laws aren’t the only thing standing between Muslim women and happy lives

The nation cannot swoop in to save the Muslim woman while Muslim communities are simultaneously being brought to their knees.

I am glad it is over. I refer to talaq-e-bidat, the practice of Muslim men uttering talaq, talaq, talaq in a single setting to instantly divorce their wives, which rightfully belonged in a trash can, but also to the television nation’s delirious excitement at having “saved Muslim women”.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Are Ganesh Mandals In Maharashtra Behind A Nationwide Dilution Of Noise Pollution Norms?

Festival organisers are cheering as the state has said that after the August 10 amendment of the rules, there are no silence zones.

In the run-up to the 10-day Ganesh festival that begins on Friday, Ganpati mandals (festival organisers) in Maharashtra are feeling triumphant. On Wednesday (August 16), during a hearing in the Bombay High Court of a batch of petitions against the violation of noise pollution norms, the state government informed the bench that Maharashtra has no silence zones anymore.

Everyone Knows Test Cricket Is Dying But Few Will Step Forward To Save It

The ICC mooted the idea of a World Test Championship in 2008. Nine years later, we’re still discussing how to save the oldest format of the game.

Robert Southey was meditating on the futility of war; he could just as well have been musing on the “Test” series just completed between India and Sri Lanka, and the one now under way between the West Indies and England.