-The Hindu     The shortened lifespan of the quarry workers of Uttar Pradesh is spent breaking stones and residing among the pollution- laden boulders Mired with sandy roads and rocky terrain, the landscape in south-western Allahabad creates a remarkable mirage under the blue sky. Some of the larger rocks here have sizeable craters formed in them -- a sign of their depletion over time, by an activity that is hazardous yet critical to the...

-The Hindu   Rs. 4.7 cr. utilised last fiscal compared to Rs. 9 cr. in 2010-11 Bangalore: In what could be read as an MLA report card in a way, the performance of a large number of the State's Assembly constituencies, gauged under the national rural job guarantee schemes, progressively fell on many fronts during 2009-12. According to data pertaining to projects taken up under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) for...

-The Indian Express If the BJP finds itself on the back foot today, it isn't because of corruption scandals, but due to the splintering of its social coalition As the stage is set for the state assembly elections in Karnataka, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda recently made a surprising admission: corruption is not an issue in the upcoming elections, and the precipitous decline in political morality can only be arrested by...

-The Indian Express Bulandshahr: Life, for them, had never been easy. The couple and their family of 16 live in a two-room tenement and the father, who works at a local grocery store for a Daily wage of Rs 200, is the only earning member. Theirs is also one of four Jatav Dalit families in a majority Lodhe Rajput village just outside Bulandshahr city, and have been under pressure for long. But...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The urban Indian's diet, pickled with takeaways from fast-food joints and instant foods that are ready in a jiffy at the end of a long working day, could worsen the present epidemic of hypertension due to its high proportion of salt. In a city where every fourth adult is believed to have hypertension, experts said the focus should be on reducing salt intake in the Daily...