-NetworkIdeas.org It is perhaps fitting that the seriousness of the coronavirus threat hit most of the Western world around the Ides of March, the traditional day of reckoning of outstanding debts in Ancient Rome. The previous week had been a veritable roller coaster ride. The World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared the contagion a pandemic, governments scrambled to respond, the virus dominated the news cycle as well as the plethora of...

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in China during early January this year and its dissemination globally within a few days, health experts have suggested ways to check its spread exponentially among the rest of the population. In the age of internet connectivity, work-from-home and self-isolation have been advised as solutions to ensure social distancing and avoid large-scale social gatherings. Experts have asked governments and private enterprises to keep people at...

-The Hindu For the first time in India, a whole region has recorded the presence of pesticides and PAH in its natural sources of water and surface sediments Kolkata: Groundwater as well as river water in the western Bengal basin has high concentrations of pesticides and toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a study authored by a group of scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur has revealed. The researchers tested hundreds...

-The Hindu Coupled with a delay in paddy procurement, rains are adding to the farmers’ woe as they struggle to find shelter for their stock. BHUBANESWAR: Hundreds of farmers hit by slow pace in paddy procurement are staring at huge losses as their paddy stocks are exposed to unseasonal rain in Odisha. The State has been receiving widespread rain due to western disturbance since Tuesday. Eighteen of 28 meteorological observation stations in the...

-The Hindu “We will not let the government implement any pact if we as major stakeholders in the Bodoland and adjoining areas are kept in the dark,” AKRSU general secretary Jibesh Ray said. Guwahati: A 12-hour shutdown called by several organisations on Monday against the Bodo accord signed in New Delhi evoked a mixed response in Assam. It was effective in some western and north-central districts. Organisations such as the All Koch Rajbongshi...