-The Times of India BHOPAL: Brides are being bought in Madhya Pradesh - sometimes in exchange for a buffalo and some cash. It might have sounded bizarre had there not been such a tragic tinge to it. In districts like Ashoknagar and Guna, where men far outnumber women probably due to female foeticide, desperate grooms are turning to human traffickers to find a wife. It's no problem if they don't have deep...

-The Times of India AJMER: The old and evil order of casteism and untouchability refused to die down and recently reared up it's ugly head with dalits being prevented from taking part in a yagna for a temple inauguration, for which they too have contributed. The incident happened in an interior village, Dhaulat Khera, of Pisangan block in Ajmer district on Wednesday. Daulat Khera has about 450 households dominated by Jats, Rawats...

-The Hindu Thousands of acres of uncultivable forested hills in Haryana, Gurgaon and Faridabad face the same prospect Gurgaon: Two decades ago when Sunil’s parents sold off 25 acres of their family’s share of land in the Mangar forests of Faridabad, they and other villagers thought the buyers were fools to buy it up because they were assured that they could continue to use it for grazing Cattle and firewood. Today, 25-year-old...

-The Hindu Farmers bring their Cattle to camp to provide water and fodder Shidewadi (Maharashtra): It’s Kavita Garje’s 10th day at the Cattle camp and she can already predict the conditions for the next 10 months. “It didn’t rain at all this year, so our buffaloes have to be kept here at least till next September. We have no fodder or water for them,” the 13-year-old girl says, as she feeds her...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...