-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority announced on Saturday fresh anti-pollution measures in Delhi-NCR from November 1 under the Graded Response Action Plan. These include a halt in construction activities for 10 days, shutting down of coal and biomass-based industries over the November 4-10 period and an advisory asking people to limit their exposure to the air. EPCA chairperson Bhure Lal wrote to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a move to step up pressure on polluters as Delhi faces its annual winter bad air days, the Centre said on Saturday that criminal prosecution will be launched against violators failing to take action despite warnings and offenders will also be named and shamed on official websites. Noting poor compliance of its directives to check air pollution in Delhi-NCR, the Centre said the names of...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Renowned agricultural scientist and the chief architect of the green revolution in India, MS Swaminathan, was awarded the first World Agriculture Prize for his contributions to Indian agriculture by Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu here on Friday. While giving away the award, which carries prize money of $1,00,000 (?73,45,500), instituted by the nongovernmental Indian Council of Food and Agriculture, Naidu said “like we have most favoured nation, we...

-The Hindu Business Line The Department of Telecommunications on Friday directed telecom service providers to stop using Aadhaar authentication to verify the KYC of existing mobile customers and to issue new connections. It asked the operators to abide by the order by November 5. The use of “Aadhaar authentication is not permissible for eKYC for verification of telecom subscribers, nor for issuing new mobile connections”, said the DoT in a statement issued...

-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab continue to burn paddy stubble every winter despite a ban on the practice. Jacob Koshy and Vikas Vasudeva report on the compulsions that drive farmers to adopt this method of clearing their fields and the efforts by the State administration to wean them off it The highway to Bibipur, a hamlet about 50 km from Patiala town, cuts through acres of paddy. Some of the rice stalk...