-The Hindu Bengaluru: In the arid Budnahatti village just beyond Challakere, the four borewells dug to provide villagers with drinking water have started drying up because of consecutive droughts. “There is barely one inch of water yield from here, not enough for everyone in the village. We have requisitioned authorities to drill three more borewells, but we may have to go more than 1,000 feet deep to get some water,” says Eswarappa,...

-The Hindu The institution can play an Important role in refreshing India’s fiscal federalism India’s Constitution-makers thought of India as a union of States with a centripetal bias, done, advisedly, to preserve the unity and integrity of a newly fledged nation. Since then, the Indian economy, polity, demography and society have undergone many changes. The new aspirational India is now firmly on a growth turnpike. It is in this context that we...

-Business Standard Unlikely to rise further as the government allowed Imports, release stock held by Nafed Mumbai: With its price shot up sharply in the last few weeks, tur dal has started slipping out of consumers’ plate steadily. Data compiled by the Union Ministry of Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution showed the maximum tur dal prices across the country is at Rs 110 a kg on higher side and average or model...

-The Hindu All it would have taken was to ensure that the children had a meal at night Along with my colleagues, I had investigated the so-called mystery disease in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, during its outbreak in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The local name for it was acute encephalitis syndrome, but we found that the disease was not encephalitis but encephalopathy. This distinction is Important. Encephalitis results from a viral infection, unless proved...

-Down to Earth A delay in arrival of the monsoon, especially in western India, will worsen the water woes even further There is a downward trend in water levels in at least 71 of 91 reservoirs across India according to data released by the Central Water Commission (CWC) on June 13. The situation is particularly grim in the north-western region — in Gujarat and Maharashtra — and in the southern states of Kerala...