The Yamuna may be in spate near Delhi, states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu may be soaked wet and the Mithi river -- the lifeline of Mumbai -- could be flowing at the brim, but for people in the East and Northeast India the thirst for rain prolongs. They wait for the rain gods to smile upon them. Overall, this is one of the best monsoon India has...

There’s suddenly a flurry of activity in Karotia, a nondescript village in West Bengal’s Burdwan district. Lately, a lot of politicians and state government officials have been visiting the village, and they say work on a nearly forgotten 14km irrigation canal is going to start soon. It’s been nearly 36 years since the state government first proposed to dig the canal, recalls Azizur Haque, the local panchayat chief. It was to...

A farmer committed suicide in Burdwan today, apparently driven by drought, debt and the anxiety of bringing up a daughter born four days ago. Gosain Patra, 32, is the third farmer from Burdwan’s Ausgram to have committed suicide this year. Gosain, a resident of Purbatotipara village, hanged himself from a tree this morning. The farmer’s family members said he had managed to cultivate only half of his two-and-a-half bigha land because of...

About 26 Indians "most of them from eastern UP" have been held hostage near Malaysian city Ipoh for over a week now. According to reports, the hostages have been confined to a room surrounded by hills covered with dense forests. All that they are being given is rice, salt, a few biscuits to eat and water from flush tank to drink. Besides, they have been tied to each other so...

lain RTI activist Amit Jethava’s father, Bhikha, has claimed that a whopping Rs 1 crore, and not Rs 15 lakh as is being stated, was passed for the contract killing of his son. He alleged that the amount was raised by Junagadh BJP MP Dinesh Solanki from various illegal miners on the pretext of fighting the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Amit in the Gujarat High Court against the illegal...