-The Indian Express A report on air quality, released during the conference, said Varanasi and Allahabad have not seen a single ‘good’ air quality day in the past one year. Varanasi: Burning agricultural residue doesn’t just bring down air quality, but also leads to longer spells of dense fog, scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur have concluded. While the concentration of oxidised organic carbon that is produced after burning biomass —...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Studying in an English-medium school does not automatically make your child proficient in English, a comparison of two nationwide surveys on school enrolment trends and performance in English suggests. One in three schoolchildren goes to English-medium schools in Himachal Pradesh while one in 30 does so in Bengal, according to a survey by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA). But Class X students in Bengal, sampled...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD (Telengana): People of the Dakkali caste are one of the 193 communities that are categorised as Denotified Tribes or (DNTs). They are forced to beg exclusively from the Madiga Community, one of the Scheduled Castes. Banala Mangesh, a Dakkali shares how his community is discriminated against, not just by the privileged but also, the Madigas who have been subject to atrocities for centuries. “We are not eligible...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A health consortium today questioned a decision by Delhi High Court earlier this week to quash the Centre's ban on 344 cocktails of two or more medicines and urged doctors across the country to stop prescribing them. The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), the Indian section of the global People's Health Movement, said it was shocked at the judgment because there was "no scientific rationale" for the continued use...

-Hindustan Times When launching the International Solar Alliance (ISA) during the United Nations Climate Change summit in 2015 at Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “The sun is the source of all energy, the world must turn to solar, the power of our future.” Last week, a solar power plant in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu became the world’s largest plant. With a capacity to produce 648 MW of electricity, the plant comprises...