-Village Square High levels of arsenic in the water supply is afflicting many villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh but the government hasn’t been able to design and implement any program to contain the menace Ballia (Uttar Pradesh): Ekawana Rajpur is a village in Belhari administrative block along the banks of the Ganga and 16km from Ballia town in eastern Uttar Pradesh where villagers commonly suffer from afflictions such as itchy skin lesions,...

As opposed to what has been said officially about the positive impact of demonetisation on rabi sowing, acreage actually declined in 2016-17 as compared to a normal year. Let us see why this has been so. On New Year’s Eve, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the nation post-demonetisation, among other things, said: “...Friends in the last few weeks, an impression was sought to be created that the agriculture sector...

-The Hindu Elections are to be held between February 4 and March 8 in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Punjab and Goa. The Election Commission on Monday directed the Central government not to announce schemes specific to poll-bound States in the Union Budget. Elections are to be held between February 4 and March 8 in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Punjab and Goa. “It may be ensured that in the Budget speech, the government’s achievements in...

-IANS New Delhi: India’s cash-driven agri sector continues to reel under the effects of demonetisation, with farmers growing fruits and vegetables suffering “huge losses”, say farm leaders who want the Union budget to “compensate” them for these losses. Amid reports of farmers dumping or refusing to harvest crops like tomatoes and peas due to a crash in prices as traders did not have the cash to purchase the produce, farmer leader Ajay...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A survey of children's learning levels has found that Class V and Class VIII students performed as poorly in arithmetic in 2016 as they did in 2014 but Class III kids did marginally better.   The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released today also found little change in the enrolment figures in private schools. About 30.5 per cent children of the 6-14 age group were enrolled in private...