-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today banned tourism in the core areas of India’s tiger reserves till further orders, fuelling fears among tour operators and some conservationists that people would lose the chance to watch the animals in the wild, local economies would bleed and poaching would increase. The court, responding to a petition by a non-government environment organisation, acknowledged concerns expressed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority that tourism may be...

-The Economic Times It is a wake up call for the government and its efforts to improve the quality of schooling through the Right to Education. The number of children enrolled in government primary schools has dropped by 21 lakh between 2009-10 and 2010-11 while there has been an increase of 11 lakh in enrolment in private schools. The biggest decline in government primary school enrollment was in Jammu & Kashmir, jharkhand,...

-The Telegraph Jamshedpur: Work is underway on turning former Maoist hotbed West Singhbhum’s Manoharpur block into a hub of model villages sponsored by Union rural development ministry, a separate project that will operate simultaneously with the much-hyped Saranda Action Plan (SAP). The ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh has asked the state forest department to study all the 56 villages of the block and chalk out an integrated development project under the banner...

-Reuters India's monsoon rains retreated to below average levels in the past week, the weather office said on Thursday, after scraping above average the previous week for the first time this season, keeping overall rainfall under par and pushing futures higher. Monsoon rains were 22 per cent below average in the week to July 18 against one per cent above average rains in the previous week, reflecting the return of a weak...

-The Hindu Every fourth girl married in rural Rajasthan and every fifth girl married in rural Bihar and jharkhand is less than 18 years -- this despite several measures taken by the government to check child marriages in the country. Only 50 per cent deliveries are considered safe in jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and just about 45 per cent children are fully immunised in Uttar Pradesh. The percentage of men getting married...