-The Business Standard Because the ecology of various regions differs, it is silly to club them all under one countrywide average number A whopping three-fourth of the country's geographic area is right now facing a rainfall deficit severe enough to warrant crisis management. The Indian Meteorological Department's data shows that 74% of India has so far recorded monsoon rainfall much below its normal levels. Of the 36 rainfall divisions that the...

-PTI Guwahati: Assam tops the list jumping to 17,449 in 2013 from 13,544 in 2012. Crimes against women in six of the eight Northeastern states increased significantly in 2013 compared to 2012 before as Assam led the list, although Manipur and mizoram registered a downward trend. At all-India level, Assam remains in the seventh place, like in 2013. The list is headed by Andhra Pradesh, followed by Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra...

-Down to Earth   Faulty implementation of FRA said to be a reason for party winning just three of the 41 tribal seats in the country However, most of the tribal seats this time have been won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and regional parties such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), YSR Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) (see list of seats below). It is strange that the...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: The 2G scam-tainted A Raja, DMK candidate from Nilgiris constituency in Tamil Nadu, had to taste humiliation not only at the hands of his AIADMK rival C Gopalakrishnan but also had to put up with a spoiler called NOTA. NOTA, short for none-of-the-above option introduced for the first time in this Lok Sabha election, polled the highest votes in Nilgiris, 46,559 to be precise, beating...

-The Hindu   Forest cover loss has occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is declining, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests Two spectacular bamboo dances, one celebrated, the other reviled, enliven the mountains of mizoram. In the colourful Cheraw, Mizo girls dance as boys clap bamboo culms at their feet during the annual Chapchar Kut festival. The festival itself is linked to the other dance:...