-The Hindustan Times fatehabad: If women bodies are the epitome of liberation for the fairer sex, in many villages and hamlets of Haryana, women are increasingly shunning ghunghat (veil) and leading an example. Sushma Bhadu of Dhani Miyan Khan village in fatehabad district not only fought to swagger among bête noires, but also took a pop at the centuries-old cultural tradition that dictates she be covered with a ghunghat in public places. A...

-The Indian Express But for their status of being sitting MLAs, former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay could have been staring at the end of their political careers after being sentenced for 10 years in a corruption case. Instead, father and son remain legislators after they moved the Delhi High Court, thanks to the existing provisions of 1951’s Representation of the People (RP) Act. For a convicted...

-The Times of India GHAZIABAD: The air in Ghaziabad, even in relatively greener areas such as Indirapuram, Vaishali and Kaushambi, is nothing short of a poisonous cocktail. Prolonged exposure to the air in the city, among the top five 'most critically polluted cities' in the country, can lead to a number of respiratory diseases, most of which directly affect the lungs. Centre of Science Environment's (CSE) analysis of government data and Global...

-Outlook An international row over a ‘world record’ “It’s 120 per cent fake,” Professor Yuan Long Ping (82), hailed as the father of ‘hybrid rice’ in China, had fumed last week in reaction to the claim that five farmers from Bihar had all individually grown more rice per hectare than the ‘world record’ of 19.4 tonnes per hectare in China—the best figure being 22.4 ton­nes. He would believe the claim, he...

-The Hindu The influx of 2.5 lakh Muslims after the 2008 constituency delimitationled to insecurity among Hindus in Dhule, claims social activist Almost two months since six people were killed after communal violence in the north Maharashtra district of Dhule, the aggressive-yet-vulnerable countenance of the town has resurfaced. Citizens, both Hindu and Muslim, reveal that behind the volatility is the small town’s neglected struggle for an identity. A small fight at a local...