-PTI Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said the ground water level in the country is decreasing and there is an urgent need to check this through encouraging micro irrigation. "The ground water table in the country has come down in the last few years and in order to check this we should work with technologies like drip and sprinkler irrigation, which minimises loss of water," Pawar said in his inaugural address at...

-The Hindu The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan on Monday called upon the Union Government to extend free medicine supply scheme, presently operational in a few States like Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, all over the country to reduce out-of-pocket expenditure of common people on health care. Such a scheme would especially benefit the patients deprived of any kind of treatment due to poverty. In a letter addressed to Union Health & Family Welfare Secretary...

-The Hindu M.P. government agrees to demands of Omkareshwar Dam oustees Oustees of the Omkareshwar Dam project called off their jal satyagraha on Monday after the Madhya Pradesh government accepted all their demands and constituted a ministerial committee to look into their grievances. On the 17th day of the protest, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan announced that the government had agreed to the key demands of the agitators — reducing the water level...

-The Hindu Pitched battles at Kudankulam; one killed in Tuticorin police firing The hitherto-peaceful agitation against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu turned violent on Monday, with protesters attacking policemen, and police resorting to lathi-charge and the firing of teargas shells. The agitation, which was confined to Idinthakarai and surrounding villages, spilled over to the neighbouring Tuticorin district where one fisherman died when police opened fire. Battlefield In the morning, the Idinthakarai beach...

-Outlook At least five of the 13 coal blocks allocated when Madhu Koda was the Chief Minister of Jharkhand are under the CBI scanner for alleged irregularities in the applications submitted by the beneficiary firms. CBI sources said today preliminary investigations have shown there were alleged irregularities in the allocation of at least five coal blocks during the tenure of Koda--between September 2006 and August 2008. During the two-year period, the sources said...