-The Indian Express Reducing its use in agriculture is the most effective way of solving India’s water problem. Spiritual teachers tell us that if we stay calm in the face of a crisis, our response is more likely to be meaningful, effective and sustainable. Like good scientists, they also advise us to maintain a clear and steady view of the facts of the situation, and then act accordingly. Those trying to solve...

-Newsclick.in With the union government now giving a huge push to the use of solar pumps for extracting groundwater for irrigation, the problem of depletion gets further compounded. Buldhana (Maharashtra): As a large part of India reels under floods this monsoon, there might seem little reason to dwell on groundwater depletion. Yet, government policy might be putting the already over-used groundwater at greater risk. In 2012, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural...

  In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...

-The Indian Express In terms of IITs, the maximum dropouts are seen in IIT-Delhi, while at IIMs, most dropouts took place at IIM Indore followed by IIM Kashipur. At IIM-Kashipur, all the dropouts in the past two years were reserved-category students. Out of 2,461 students who dropped out from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the last two years, 371 students were from the Scheduled Caste (SC), 199 from the Scheduled...

-The Times of India Manisha Verma, principal secretary, tribal development department, Maharashtra talks to Sugandha Indulkar about The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and related issues, with today being World Tribal Day. * What’s the precise positioning of the tribal welfare departments at the Centre and states on FRA? This is a seminal legislation. The preamble to the Act itself states that it aims...