-IANS Kolkata: Climate change is causing toxic metals trapped in the sediment beds of the Hooghly estuary in the Indian Sunderbans to leach out into the water system due to changes in ocean chemistry, say scientists, warning of potential human health hazards. They predict that after about 30 years, increasing ocean acidification - another dark side of spiked atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide - could in fact unlock the entire stock of...

-The Hindustan Times The government plans to put up coal mines for bidding by private steel, power and cement companies and introduce changes in the law to enable commercial mining in the future, signalling its intent to fully open the sector to private players. The new auction-based system will replace the earlier controversial policy of allotting coal blocks based on recommendations of a panel of bureaucrats, which the Supreme Court had struck...

-The Hindustan Times The World Bank has submitted a detailed action plan that could help the government meet its objective of supplying power 24x7 in the country, with focus on bringing down distribution losses, improving infrastructure and expanding solar power. The proposal includes a state-wise turnaround plan for the key seven or eight states that together account for about 80% of the $20 billion (Rs 1.2 lakh crore) annual power distribution losses. Officials...

-Deccan Chronicle ONGOLE: After fluoride, it has been found that ground water in 46 villages under Peddacherlapallil, Chandrasekhara Puram and Chimakurthy mandals in Prakasam district contains uranium. This was revealed in a chemical analysis test conducted by the rural water supply department at a testing lab in Hyderabad. Groundwater in Diwakarapuram village under P.C. Palli mandal contains the highest traces of uranium, 48.863 parts per billion (ppb), and in Hariramarajapalem Colony it is...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Rural Development The Union Minister of Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation Shri Nitin Gadkari said that Swachh Bharat Mission will be converted into a mass movement to make India an open defecation free country in Five Years. Addressing a Joint Press conference with the Urban Development Minister Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu here this afternoon, Shri Gadkari said, one lakh thirty four thousand crore rupees...