-The Telegraph New Delhi: Heat trapped by tarred roads and dense clusters of buildings may have added nearly 2 degrees to temperatures in the world's most populated cities, including Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai, over and above the effects of global warming, researchers said today. Their study, described as the first to quantify the combined impacts of global warming and the "urban heat island effect", suggests that the overheated cities will face double...

-Scroll.in Growing the traditional maize and soya bean crops is no longer economically viable. “The land is thirsty, the Korku is hungry,” goes the refrain of the Korku Adivasis in the Satpura forest in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district. An unrelenting drought since 2014 has parched the Korku farmland, driving a population of over 40,000 spread across 100-odd villages to desperation. In Khari village, for example, more than half the farmers have been forced...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today highlighted "contradictions" in the Narendra Modi government's anti-Maoist policy, accusing it of stopping key security and development schemes in the rebel zones. He questioned the utility of convening security review meetings with the chief ministers of the Maoist-hit states - like the one held in Delhi today - when the Centre was not releasing funds to fight the rebels. Union home minister Rajnath...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government today denied any move to introduce reservations in the private sector, saying there was "no such proposal", a year after the National Commission for Backward Classes had suggested enacting a law to make private firms set aside jobs for marginalised sections. "There is no such proposal (for reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) in the private sector," social justice and empowerment minister...

-DNA The political funding reforms are an embarrassment to India’s claims of heralding a transparency revolution Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetization drive and his expressed desire to bring transparency in political funding, there were expectations of more Concrete measures to cleanse the Augean stables of Indian politics. The government responded quickly, albeit through the Finance Bill. For the first time, the Union Budget 2017 devoted a full section (420...