The new Tobacco and Primary Medical Service (Scotland) Bill includes various plans to save future generations from clutches of smoking and smoking related diseases.

Under the new bill, cigarette vending machines and tobacco displays in shops would be banned. It also includes a registration scheme for retailers. It will also grant trading standards officers the power to fine retailers selling tobacco to under-18s.

Public health minister Shona Robison said that the health risks associated with smoking are both enormous and well documented advertisements.

A recent study showed that number of teenage girls getting pregnant in England and Wales have risen for the first time in five years.

Report revealed that number of underage births has fallen because of increased use of abortion in last ten years but Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe.

In 2007 there were 41.9 conceptions for every 1,000 under-18 girls as compared to 40.9 the year previously and the first rise since 2002.

The fallout of our caste legacy shows itself in brutal ways; the killing of a Dalit youth in a village in Aurangabad district on Monday is but the most recent example. The man was tied to an electric pole and stoned to death for attacking a young woman, who was a Maratha. The people who attacked and killed him were also apparently Marathas.

City colleges are doing their best to help stressed students with bang-on online counselling

Ma’am… I need your help. It’s personal. I don’t know what to do. That is why I am writing to you. The problem is I have been having constant headaches for one year but doctors say I am perfectly fine. Can you help?”

It may not sound like an unusual problem to us, but city colleges are donning the role of agony aunts to counsel their students, providing guidance through online and one-on-one counselling. Though they do provide help on different aspects of academics, including exams and presentations, stress, depression, relationship problems, loneliness have become integral issues too.

It is official now. Among the biggest rock-cut cave temples in India, the Jogeshwari caves will soon be free of human habitation and encroachment. 

The 6th century AD caves, which have been infested with encroachments and abused over the years, will, instead, be a place which tourists could visit as a heritage site and a garden. 

Following a Bombay High Court order for the removal of unauthorised structures in October last year, the state has decided to preserve the heritage precinct by designating the space as a public garden. The plot on which the caves exist will now be declared a heritage garden space. 

The debate between heritage and development is a constant in any city which has to accommodate the past and present and make arrangements for the future. But in Mumbai, this debate gets a sharper edge because of its space constraints and its burgeoning population. Should development be stalled or prevented just to preserve a dead monument which takes space and gives aesthetic pleasure only to a discerning few? Or should heritage be given its due, as both a matter of pride as well as a society which acknowledges its journey through time?