-The Hindu Chennai had the highest proportion of ‘severe’ days based on AQI Official air quality data for the first half of this year shows that while Delhi does indeed face high levels of air pollution, Kanpur, Varanasi and Chennai are worse off. Averaging across the ten pollution monitoring stations in the city, a little over a quarter of the days from January to June this year in Delhi had an Air Quality...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: It hasn't washed away the fears of deficit rainfall, but the monsoon's satisfactory performance so far has sharply reduced the possibility of a second consecutive drought in the country this year. In a drought year, average nationwide rainfall is at least 10 per cent below normal. As of now, almost halfway into the rainy season, the monsoon is 2 per cent below average, still within the...

-The Hindu Chennai: Scientists at the Chennai-based Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture have achieved success in breeding milkfish in captivity after 10 long years of research. For the first time in the country, efforts to breed in captivity milkfish (Chanos Chanos), known as Pal Kendai in Tamil, met with success by the Chennai-based Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA) at its Experimental Research Station in Muttakadu. “It is a major breakthrough in the...

-Economic and Political Weekly There has been a major change in the composition and mix of the cattle population in India. The proportion of male cattle has declined sharply as farmers do not fi nd it worthwhile to maintain bullocks to plough holdings that are becoming smaller and smaller. The composition of the milch cattle population too is changing. The proportion of the indigenous breed is falling and that of the...

-The Hindu A young girl in Jharkhand committed suicide because her father refused to build a toilet for her. When will the Indian male’s insensitivity to women’s basic needs change? Indian men urgently need basic ethical education. Since the 19th century, women’s education has been a progressive obsession with enlightened Indian social reformers. Although much remains to be done to get anywhere close to equal access to education for the genders, there...