-The Business Standard Odisha, the first state to have formulated the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) in the country seems to have dug its feet over the implementation of the ambitious plan aimed at fine tuning the balance between industrial growth and environment protection. Delay in preparation of reports by concerned departments, delineating action points and strategies for implementation coupled with lack of inter-departmental coordination has held up the plan implementation envisaging...

-The Pioneer Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan here on Saturday announced that farmers in the State will get interest-free loans. After ending his 24-hour fast observed to protest the hike in fertiliser prices over the last one year, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told mediapersons, “This zero per cent rate of interest would be applicable for loans given to farmers since April 1 this year.” When the Congress was in power, farmers used...

-The Telegraph Surtama, a 37-year-old woman from the mountains of Uttarkashi, was in the capital yesterday to express anger at having to live with no electricity and demand a revival of stalled hydroelectric projects in her state. “We walk more than 2km to a village in Himachal Pradesh to charge the mobile phone battery,” said Surtama from Pujeli, a village of about 80 households some of which have acquired mobile phones to...

In Kalyan a Muslim youth Bilal Shaikh was slaped with a non boilable cognizable offense (May 2012) under section 333, after he jumped the traffic signal. He was assaulted brutally by the police for having arguments with them, suffered a fracture in right arm and was in jail for eight days. The policemen who beat him up got released with the non cognizable warrant. Another Muslim youth Mohammad Amir Khan, age...

-The United Nations On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour, two United Nations independent human rights experts today highlighted that of the 215 million children working throughout the world, more than half are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. “One of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three,”...