Give up beef, says Jairam

New Delhi: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday urged people across the world to give up, or at least reduce, their beef consumption to bring down methane emissions. “Some people think this is a joke. But I am saying it very seriously. If people across the world give up eating beef, methane emissions would come down drastically,” Ramesh said at a function here. “What India has going for it is the fact that we are not a major beef eating nation,” Ramesh added. ENS

Two nominations to RS cleared

NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil has nominated The Tribune editor-in-chief H K Dua and former Hindustan Lever chairman A K Ganguly to the Rajya Sabha. Dua, a recipient of Padma Bhushan, is former editor of The Indian Express and The Hindustan Times. Ganguly is a recipient of Padma Vibhushan. ENS

Poverty forces parents to kill girl

BURDWAN: A couple was on Thursday arrested on charges of suffocating their two-and-a-half-year-old girl with a pillow and dumping her body in a pond, police said. The couple, residents of Kamarhati village under Madhabdihi police station in Burdwan district, later admitted that abject poverty forced them to kill their daughter. The child Madhumita had gone missing from Tuesday and her mother had claimed that she was kidnapped from home. PTI

Debt-ridden man kills family, self

SAGAR (MP): A 47-year-old man allegedly killed all five members of his family and later committed suicide on Thursday to tide over financial woes, the police said. Debt-ridden Santosh Pathak killed his family and later hanged himself this morning, they said. The deceased were identified as his wife Laxmi Pathak, 45, sons Devdatt,18, and Harsh, 10, and daughters Harshita, 16, and Preeti, 14, SP Amrit Meena said. PTI

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