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...

Why do governments ignore the farm suicide numbers of the National Crime Records Bureau, when it is the only authentic source on the subject?  Kafka might have envied the script. In Delhi, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar informed the Rajya Sabha on May 7 that there had been just six farmers' suicides in Vidarbha since January. The same day, same time in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said that figure...