Just in case one didn’t already know, or forgot how dire India’s poverty and population problem is, the Economist weighs in with another interesting perspective – by matching India’s states and territories in terms of GDP, GDP per person (in PPP terms) and population. Ironically Jammu & Kashmir would match the Bahamas, and Goa (known for its beaches) would match Malawi. And Uttar Pradesh is as rich as the oil rich Qatar if it wasn’t for the mind-blowing 195.8 million population that makes it so poor on a per-person basis.

The sheer magnitude of India’s population and poverty is just staggering and sobering. On top of that are incompetent and corrupt politicians who exacerbate the problem. And yet she manages to thrive, grow and continue to make positive contributions to the world economy.

The interactive version with even more detail is here.

As horrifying and sickening as this story is, there is much to celebrate as well. The fact that a government official took swift action on a tip and rescued 500 human beings from slavery. Kudos to the police, government officials and the International Justice Mission for carrying out this well coordinated and successful mission.

We’re hoping they will have as much success in rehabilitating the rescued, ensuring they receive all the wages due to them and bringing the kiln owner to justice.

YHL readers will know we are fierce animal lovers. We cheer any invention that can stop the carnage that comes from more people starting to eat meat. Still we were quite massively grossed out by news reports of burgers created from poop that was flying around news media. Skeptics that we are, there was something about the story that wasn’t sitting right with us. Patience and a little common sense told us to sit it out and see where it led. Justin Elliott at Salon.com followed the story through the twists and turns of how this potentially dodgy story became so widely reproduced by worldwide media outlets.

Moral of the story – question everything!

In February this year, a London icecream shop rolled out a human breast milk icecream called ‘Baby Gaga.’ Oh gross! I thought, and yet couldn’t get over being fascinated that someone had actually taken that idea to market.

Soooo old news by now. Look at all the progress we’ve made in human breast milk in the three months since then. Genetic engineers in New Zealand are breeding transgender goats with a plan to recreate human breast milk. Argentinian scientists have created the first cow with two human genes that will ‘produce human-like milk.’ Not one to be left behind, China has already introduced human genes into 300 cows to produce human-like milk.

Not ready to consume human milk that came from animal teats instead of human breasts? Fear not. WIRED has an amazing cover story on all the places and websites one can buy, sell, donate or generally trade in the big business of breast milk.

Guess it won’t be too long before we walk into a grocery store and buy human breast milk.