Union minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution KV Thomas tells Nitin Sethi that it makes better sense to distribute stocked foodgrain to people of the country than subsidise exports. Possible spread of drought that the government is looking at... At the moment, monsoon rainfall is 23% below the long term average. But we have to wait another 15 days to know the full situation. We had discussion in the presence...

-PTI Fresh incidents of arson in interior areas of Kokrajhar district were reported on Monday leading to shoot-at-sight orders, indefinite curfew and flag march by army even as the toll in the ethnic violence Assam rose to 21. Police said four more bodies were recovered during the day from Kokrajhar district. Of the total 21 deaths, Kokrajhar accounted for 17 while neighbouring four persons died in Chirang district, to where the violence between...

-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 Hazaribagh: At Sunderlal Jain Ucch Vidyalaya, a few among a group of 150 students are inevitable latecomers. Their plight has nothing to do with a dare to challenge authority, for, left without another choice, they have to get on a boat and cross a river to attend class. For the children in the villages of Larahi, Toiya, Gorkhwa and Bhattbigha, roughly 65km from the district headquarters, the Jain Ucch Vidyalaya...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court has disbanded its 17-year-old green sentinel. The court has wound up its green bench that sat every Friday since 1995 to deal with matters of forests and wildlife and had recently banned iron ore mining in Bellary, Karnataka, one among a host of far-reaching orders related to the environment. No reasons were given for disbanding the bench, a move legal experts said was inexplicable. The bench has, however, not...