-The Telegraph Many hospitals in Lucknow and other parts of the state had put up notices declaring an oxygen shortage and advising families to shift patients elsewhere Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has sent out a clear message to the state’s hospitals: keep your mouth shut about any oxygen crisis or face action. At an online meeting on Sunday evening, Adityanath asked senior administrative and police officers, including divisional commissioners and inspectors-general, to crack...

-The Indian Express Potato is a major crop in Agra, grown in 57,879 hectares of the district (2017-18 data) that includes both Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. The tuber is also extensively cultivated in Hathras (46,333 hectares) and Aligarh (23,332). Agra, Fatehpur Sikri: If it was ganna (sugarcane) in the first, it’s aloo (potato) that could be decisive in at least four of the eight Lok Sabha constituencies of Uttar Pradesh voting...

-India Climate Dialogue The meteorological department’s analysis of annual rainfall for the past 50 years has found significant increasing or decreasing trends in districts that could put a spanner into India’s food security scenario. Since June 13, there has been a hiatus in the advance of southwest monsoon in the country due to the weakening of its circulation pattern. This dry spell is expected to soon change as the monsoon is likely...

-The Hindu Managers of around 3,000 privately-run markets are to meet and protest new rules that ban sale of animals for slaughter at cattle markets Fridays are festive days at Pachokhara. For nearly half-a-century now, farmers, cattle-rearers and tradesmen have made the weekly trip to the cricket stadium-sized grounds of the Upadhyay family— prominent local land-owners — to trade cattle. A dirt road splits the ground into a section for buffaloes and another for...

-IndiaSpend.com Data demonstrate that discrimination against the SCs and STs in education, employment and property ownership continues despite affirmative action policies. Earlier this week, when upper-caste villagers in the western UP district of Firozabad tried to prevent the funeral of a Dalit paramilitary soldier killed in a terrorist ambush, it was the latest manifestation of widespread discrimination against the 305 million Indians belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Upper-caste villagers refused to...