-The Hindu The shutdown of the 220 MW Unit-1 of the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station located in Gujarat’s Surat district following leakage of heavy water used to cool the nuclear reactor, on March 11, the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan, is at once a reminder of the inherent risks associated with operating nuclear reactors and the importance of augmenting safety mechanisms. Unlike the Fukushima accident,...

-Business Standard Bright sunshine, however, offsets damage Rains and thunderstorms accompanied by hailstorm in some places have flattened standing wheat, mustard and coriander crop in some parts of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. However, the situation is not as grim as last year because the showers have been followed by bright sunshine. Agriculture scientists say the weather over the next few days will hold the key and if the hailstorm...

-Business Standard Data from past elections suggest that the saffron party gets fewer voters from the poor From postponing a hike in railway fare to promising doubled farmers' income in the next five years, from the prime minister holding a number of farmers' rallies to renewed focus on augmenting rural growth and enhancing allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in the Union Budget, the National Democratic Alliance government...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has filed an application to block US pharmaceutical company Pfizer from obtaining a patent in India for a vaccine against pneumonia and allow Indian vaccine manufacturers to make low-cost versions. The patent opposition moved by MSF has claimed that Pfizer's patent application, which describes methods of conjugating 13 serotypes (strains) of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae into a single carrier vaccine, does not...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Schoolchildren from national boards have outperformed those from the state boards in the first-ever standardised countrywide test of Class X pupils, carried out as part of a sample survey by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Students from the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, which conducts the ICSE exam, and the Central Board of SECondary Education have come out tops while Madhya Pradesh,...