Sober Reflection     * Invoking a clause in the Panchayati Raj Act, panchayats in Punjab are going dry     * The resolutions have to be adopted by two-thirds majority at panchayat meetings     * The excise department has had to shut down 32 liquor vends and relocate 15 of them     * Liquor consumption is high in Punjab: per capita consumption is 12 bottles a year *** It's the state that gave the nation the Patiala...

Even as recent media reports caution that most fruits and vegetables are largely unfit for human consumption due to their high chemical content, pesticides continue to be used recklessly in the fields of Punjab. The ‘Granary of India’ constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in India, but consumes more than 18 per cent of the total pesticides used in India. Within the state the worst affected is the southwestern...

After discovery of high levels of uranium in hair samples of a large number of mentally retarded children in Punjab’s Malwa region last year, another study suggests Punjab has become a hotspot of environmental toxicity of multiple types. While a top German laboratory revealed that hair samples of 80% of 149 neurologically-disabled children, mainly from Malwa region, had high levels of uranium, a study by Greenpeace suggested that all the...

Confirming Punjab's worst fears and TOI reports, a document from Germany's Microtrace Mineral Lab has revealed that hair samples of 80% of 149 neurologically-disabled children, mainly from Punjab's Malwa region, have high levels of uranium. The report also establishes the presence of dangerous heavy metals in water. The presence of the radioactive element has strengthened doubts that depleted uranium used by US tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan was travelling through...

Punjab farmers have been struck a double blow on the eve of the paddy transplantation season, which starts tomorrow. Reliant on migrant labour to transplant paddy on 26 lakh hectares, they are witnessing a few arrivals on trains coming in from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Farmers also do not have the option of falling back on mechanised transplantation with the experiment launched with full fanfare by the state government last...