Dairy farmers and contractors in western Uttar Pradesh and Punjab are on a warpath after private milk companies reduced procurement prices to take advantage of a bumper milk production. Farmers allege that companies are profiteering because they have not simultaneously reduced consumer prices. But companies say they have huge stocks of unsold milk and milk powder and a cut in procurement prices is to bring pressure on government to allow exports.  Cooperatives...

There is surprise and disquiet in the Urdu journalistic fraternity over the arrest of Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi for his alleged role in the attack on the Israeli diplomat. From a village on the Ghaziabad-Meerut border, Kazmi had a variety of journalistic assignments that included a weekly column and the morning news bulletin on DD Urdu. Since 2002, he also helped as a volunteer teacher of English to underprivileged Class XII students...

Blood spilt in the Hashimpura massacre and riots in 1987 remain fresh for survivors Nearly 25 years old, the black-and-white photograph of his son’s body has begun to fade but Jamaluddin Ansari’s anger has not waned. Having lost his eldest son Qamaruddin in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre in Meerut, the 75-year-old still awaits closure. “All prosecution witnesses have said what they had to state at the court but it keeps...

Just over five years ago, a global study had labelled India the world’s “lone polio exporter”, prompting the United Nations secretary-general to write a letter of concern to Manmohan Singh. Even three years ago, anti-polio workers in western Uttar Pradesh, then the disease’s epicentre in India, were often abused and driven away when they came to the villages for the vaccination programme. Such memories today flooded into the minds of doctors and...

-The Indian Express The CBI on Saturday carried out fresh searches across 23 locations in Uttar Pradesh in connection with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. The searches are being carried out across 12 districts including Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Meerut, Jhansi at the residences of health department officials of the state, who had held the posts of Chief Medical Officers (CMO) and Deputy CMOs, CBI sources said. The agency had yesterday registered...