-Livemint.com New Delhi: Back from a walk through drought-affected parts of the country, Yogendra Yadav, political scientist and co-founder of non-profit Swaraj Abhiyan, speaks on state compliance of Supreme Court orders, a booming private water market in Marathwada, and why farmer movements are weakest at a time when agrarian distress is at its peak. Edited excerpts from an interview: * You just came back from a trip to Bundelkhand and Marathwada. What...

-The Times of India Pune: Delhi might be paying the steepest price for its air pollution with life expectancy dropping by 6.4 years while Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are likely to account for the highest number of premature deaths in India, a study by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has revealed. Conducted by IITM scientists in collaboration with the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Colorado, the study is likely to...

-Hindustan Times Drinking water shortages are known to spark scuffles , but last week, it led to Sunil Giri, 23, losing his life. Giri was beaten to death in the Ramgarh district of Jharkhand for objecting to his neighbour Anwar Hussain taking more than his share from a drinking-water tanker that had reached the drought-affected village after several days. Similar violence over water sharing has also been reported from water-scarce districts in...

-The Hindu Figuring out key parameters on which to measure a State’s performance provides a playbook of best practices for others to follow. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (MGNREGA) aims at “enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.” In the financial year...

-The Hindu No action taken against hospitals or blood banks, says RTI activist. In the last 17 months alone, 2,234 persons across India have been infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while getting blood transfusions. The maximum number of such cases — 361 — was reported from Uttar Pradesh due to unsafe blood transfusion practices in hospitals. Just last week, a three-year-old boy from Assam’s Kamrup district, admitted to the Gauhati Medical College...