Photo: Abhijeet Gaikwad/Unsplash (CC0)
From potable water connections for more than 100 million rural households in India to an NHS programm offering rewards for walking 30 minutes a day: here’s our recap of the best and most importantant constructive news and stories from the past month.
A 2019 initiative of the Indian government to bring a potable water supply to all rural households is having success. The Jal Jeevan Mission has brought the percentage of homes in rural India with a drinkable water supply from 16.7% to 80.9%.
Source: Mint
Infant deaths have declined across the country, down from 30 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019 to 24 in 2024. This decrease has been attributed to a big increase in institutional deliveries alongside better and more expanded maternal and child healthcare services across the region.
Source: Times of India
According to new data, this would be the lowest murder rate on record since the FBI started publishing national murder numbers in the 1950s. After a rise in murder rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, they are now approaching a rate of 4 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. However, this is still twice the rate of Canada.
Source: NPR
New data suggest Argentina saw only 3.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2025 – the country’s lowest rate on record. Argentina has now received the highest international rating for the quality of its crime statistics. The figure places Argentina among the least violent countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that continues to record some of the world’s highest homicide rates.
Source: Buenos Aires Times
At the beginning of the early 2000s, you were roughly three times more likely to be assaulted in Scotland than in the US. A radical approach by the Scottish authorities started viewing violent crime as a public health problem – and now sees the country ranked as one of the safest in the world.
Source: BBC News
The Vagrancy Act 1824, the law that criminalised rough sleeping, will be officially repealed next week. The Housing Secretary explained the move would encourage a shift “from punishment to prevention” in terms of approaches to homelessness.
Source: LBC
Residents of Portugal’s second-largest city can now use metro, bus, suburban rail, tram and river services across the wider metropolitan area, with the scheme encouraging people to leave their cars at home in favour of green alternatives.
Source: EU Today
Most buses in England will be capped again at £2, the administration of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced Thursday. The same amount of funding to pay for the cap in England will go to Scotland and Wales, where those governments can decide how to use it. The new government also said this week it would cut taxes on home electricity bills.
Source: BBC
Launching early next year, the NHS England-backed Marathon a Month challenge invites participants to walk for around 30 minutes each day. Completing the daily goal means users will cover approximately 26 miles over a month, and walks can be tracked online or through a smartphone or smartwatch. Those who successfully complete the challenge will be eligible for rewards including discounts and other incentives.
Source: BBC News
New data suggest that since 2015, emissions of sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides have fallen by around 3-5% each year across the EU, with the largest reductions recorded in the industrial sector and road transport.
Source: Euronews
Dedicated to the prevention of digital media addiction and the promotion of conscious smartphone use, the project “Discover” is underway in Florence. While other European countries rely on strict bans, Italy is taking a preventive approach to education, offering workshops, media courses and creative projects.
Source: Euronews
There is no approved drug to help the medical teams scrabbling to save lives in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – but there are hopes that could change within months as the first patients are enrolled in a treatment trial. Two drugs are being trialled in the Ituri region in a programme set up just six weeks after the outbreak was declared.
Source: The Guardian
African nations are increasingly demanding that more of their mineral wealth is processed locally before being exported. From Kenya and Ghana to Mali, governments are moving away from the traditional extractive model, using their natural resources to boost domestic manufacturing and speed up industrial development.
Source: Al Jazeera
Paris’ cooling system has 120 kms of underground pipes distributing chilled water from the river Seine to museums, offices, hospitals, schools and other public buildings including the Louvre and the Grand Palais. Instead of thousands of individual air-conditioning units, cooling is produced centrally and shared across the city like a utility. Now the city is planning to triple the number of underground pipes.
Source: The Guardian
In Mexico capital, Isla Urbana helps create rainwater harvesting systems that provide low-income households with sustainable water access for five to eight months of the year (during the dry season rainfall is insufficient). Founded in 2009, the organisation aims to reach 1 million people who would previously have had to collect water themselves, by next year.
Source: The Guardian
In Guatemala’s Maya biosphere reserve local people are making a living from trees at the same time as increasing forest cover. The 2.1m-hectare reserve in the northern province of Petén was established by the Guatemalan government in 1990 and recognised by Unesco. It now anchors the largest natural forest in Central America.
Source: The Guardian
Eight artificial canopy bridges installed in Alta Floresta, Brazil, have enabled endangered species to navigate safely across fragmented forest highways. The low-cost model is now set to expand to other Brazilian regions and neighbouring Suriname.
Source: Mongabay
The species saw a big decline in the late 20th and early 21st centuries because of poaching, habitat loss, and disease. In the early 2000s, the population in Kazakhstan had fallen to fewer than 25,000 animals. In a win for the once-critically endangered antelope, the population has increased by over 18,000% in the past two decades.
Source: Astana Times
In the twentieth century, whaling killed an estimated 725,000 fin whales and 325,000 blue whale. Off the coast of Namibia and South Africa, only four blue whale sighting were logged between 1973 and 2014. However, since 2012, an increasing number of whales have been spotted, suggesting the population is bouncing back.
Source: Mongabay
Dolphins keep dying in fishing nets because their natural sonar cannot detect them. An emeritus marine biologist has now found out that attaching empty plastic bottles to the nets enables dolphins to locate them and reduces the dolphin bycatch by 88 percent. During the trials no bottles were lost at sea.
Source: Discover Wildlife
The Dutch start-up ‘The Great Bubble Barrier’ has developed a system that uses air bubbles in rivers to prevent plastic waste from reaching the sea. It is already in use in the Netherlands and Portugal. The company hopes to scale the technology for use in Southeast Asia in some of the world’s most polluted rivers.
Source: Euronews
Beavers are playing an unexpected role in protecting landscapes from wildfires. Building dams and creating wetlands means they’re able to help keep areas wetter for longer, making it harder for fires to spread while giving wildlife a place to shelter and helping burnt areas recover.
Source: Euronews
Addressing both high teen unemployment and the challenges of climate change, the Swedish government is financing summer jobs in teen-initiated green projects. The jobs all have sustainability at their core and are intended to provide professional experience while inspiring hope for the future.
Source: The Guardian
The world’s first “community powered” sauna heated by food waste from residents of the neighbouring housing estate is set to open in London. R-Urban Poplar is a “living lab” where locals can experiment with ways of taking charge of their food supply.
Source: The Guardian
On the Technical University of Munich campus, a kindergarten known as Kinderoase is an on-site childcare facility to support young professionals, particularly women, at the university in balancing work and family responsibilities. Studio founder Diébédo Francis Kéré explains that “play is the core of this design.”
Source: Dezeen
Children and young adults raised in mafia families will be given a chance to break away from organised crime under a new law to stop the intergenerational recruitment of gangsters. In an effort to sever the family chain, the Italian state will offer those under 25 and other close relatives of mafia bosses a chance to start over: a new home in another city, a new school and, if necessary, a new identity.
Source: The Guardian
In southern Europe heat hits hard. Italy’s capital Rome is therefore offering free film screenings in eleven air-conditioned cinemas. The programme expands the existing network of cooling oases in the city and is named after a US film classic from 1983: ‘The Big Chill’.
Source: Reuters
A traditional wrestling-based martial art known as Khomlainai is bringing together children from Assam’s Bodo and Santhal communities after decades of conflict strained relations between the two groups. The scheme uses sport and shared cultural traditions to build trust and encourage reconciliation among the younger generations.
Source: Deutsche Welle
