-The Economic Times Rains in the last few days across the country excluding the southern peninsula have affected the standing wheat crop. Harvesting has already been delayed by a fortnight in Punjab, the wheat bowl of the country. State governments are advising farmers not to bring the moisture-laden wheat to market yards for sale.  "At isolated places, there are instances of water-logging. It will not impact production with harvesting at its peak...

Nagpur orange’s survival hinges precariously on its return to sustainable cultivation. Farmers have woken up to this, but will the government? A beaming Uday Wath hugs the trunk of his sturdy, disease-free Nagpur orange tree. All around him are trees drooping with the fruit, large and healthy. The tree trunks are singularly free of both telltale gummosis wounds and bluish white bordeaux paste, the chemical meant to prevent them. Not more than...

-The United Nations An independent United Nations human rights expert today hailed a decision by the Indian Supreme Court to uphold a law which mandates that a quarter of the places in the county’s private and public schools should be reserved for disadvantaged groups. “Exclusion and poverty remain the most important obstacles to the realization of the right to education in all regions of the world,” said the Special Rapporteur on the...

-The Hindustan Times The anticipatory bail petition of RTI activist Manoj Kumar Karwasra was dismissed on Friday by additional sessions judge, Hisar, Sant Parkash. Karwasra had been booked under IPC sections 419, 420 and 120-B on the complaint of BS Rana, president, St Sophia School Education Society. Karwasra allegedly misused BPL card of Jeet Ram to seek information under the RTI Act, as BPL card-holders can seek information free of cost. Police...

 When Mamata Banerjee defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) last May after 34 years of power in West Bengal, her victory was portrayed by optimists as the beginning of a Kolkata Spring. Free of the communists’ rural thugs and urban heelers, the story went, the state would finally enter the 21st century. One year after Banerjee’s landslide, however, the new boss is looking a lot like the old one —...