The next 72 hours will be crucial for the state as it battles to keep its head above rising floodwaters in the Mahanadi basin. Authorities kept an anxious watch on the situation today as Hirakud town was cut off from Sambalpur and the Pipli-Konark road was closed with several rivers still in spate. The government directed collectors of the 19 flood-hit districts to close down schools and colleges in the marooned...

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress today expressed “serious objections” to the proposed bill against communal violence, saying the current draft undermined the country’s federal structure. The BJP sAid it would intensify its campaign against the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Regulations) Bill, 2011, emboldened by the objections of other non-Congress parties, although none backed its pet “bias against Hindus” line. ( ) Mamata did not attend the National...

With nearly 800 million people unable to read or write, the United Nations today marked International Literacy Day with a warning that illiteracy undermines efforts to eliminate a host of social ills such as poverty and sickness and threatens the very stability of nations. “The costs are enormous,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sAid in a message. “Illiteracy exacerbates cycles of poverty, ill-health and deprivation. It weakens communities and undermines democratic processes through...

-IANS   About 750,000 people could die in East Africa over the next four months due to famine, if enough Aid didn't reach the famine-stricken region, the UN has warned. According to the UN, about 12 million people across the region, and four million in Somalia alone, are in need of food Aid, Daily Mail reported. Getting Aid to the starving is a 'race against time', sAid a top humanitarian official for Somalia, while...

The flawed Bill on food security has not received the kind of publicity that the Lokpal Bill has, but that does not diminish its significance. “THIS government has divided everything and everyone. There are different cards for different sections of the poor. If my employer, taking pity on me, gives me an old television, I am not entitled to a yellow card [Below Poverty Line card]. My son who is...