-The Telegraph   A routine road trip from Ranchi to Dhanbad was enough for an aghast senior functionary of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to pull up Jharkhand for illegal mining and exploitation of tribals at the hands of the coal mafia. A source told The Telegraph that NHRC secretary-general Rajiv Sharma had visited the state in January. “On a drive from Ranchi to Dhanbad, he saw tribal children pushing coal-laden cycles uphill. It...

Observed changes in rainfall patterns and increased temperatures, particularly in the North-Eastern region, are the major projections on which Indian agriculture scientists are pegging their “mitigation and adaptation” plans in the farm sector in the absence of definitive long-term and area-specific data on climate change. Acknowledging that in India the “climate system is extremely complex and poorly understood in terms of extent, timing and impact”, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR)...

If the Consumer Affairs Ministry had its say, imported food grains and pulses containing hazardous foreign matter would have made its way on to the Indian platter. In fact, import of damaged grains too would have been a possibility - on the pretext of the country witnessing inadequate food grains’ production. The Ministry, besides a number of importers, had called for a relaxation in the existing set norms for the import...

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report on the 2G Spectrum has created a great deal of controversy and his role is being questioned. The Public Accounts Committee could not finalise its report due to the splitting on the issue on party lines. The JPC currently examining the matter has taken an unprecedented step of taking evidence of a junior officer of the CAG’s set up, since retired, and quizzed the...

-The Hindu In a fresh move to resolve the deadlock over the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNNP), Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly on Saturday that the State government will constitute a panel of experts immediately to go into the Safety system of the proposed plant and “perceptions and apprehensions” of the local population. The panel would submit its report to the government at the earliest, on the basis of which...