-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: Waste dumped in landfill sites is contaminating surrounding groundwater in the Tricity, according to a PGI study published recently in an international journal. Scientists fear non-segregation and unregulated dumping of the garbage has deteriorated the quality with the passage of time, an alarming sign. Experts say that once the groundwater becomes polluted, contamination persists and becomes difficult to treat due to physical inaccessibility. Concentrations of heavy metal ions...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is mulling bringing organic produce under the minimum support price (MSP) regime to promote pesticide-free farming in the country. At present, there is no support price for organic produce, except in Sikkim which approved it in May for horticultural items. The agriculture ministry recently discussed offering 20% higher MSP for organic farm produce over traditional (non-organic) produce and procuring a minimum 10% of organic...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court asked the Reserve Bank of India on Monday to break its 10-month silence and reveal its decision on complaints that banks do not reduce floating interest rates on existing loans for buying homes, vehicles or consumer durables proportionate to its repo rate cuts (rate at which RBI lends money to banks). Petitioner ‘MoneyLife Foundation’ told the court that it wrote to RBI last...

-The Indian Express Jharkhand is one of the five states that had advertised a scheme under which doctors could quote their own salaries. The others are Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. New Delhi: Plagued by shortage of specialists in community health centres in rural areas, states have granted huge salary hikes to paediatricians, surgeons and gynaecologists posted in rural areas — in states such as Jharkhand and Tripura, these...

-The Hindu “Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate” New Delhi: “Limiting global warming to 1.5ºCelcius would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a new assessment made public on Monday. The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in...