-The Hindu The interaction between people and land is as old as human evolution. When early hunter-gatherers started to settle down in the Neolithic tranSITion and practise agriculture, they began to change their relationship with land in a major way. Starting with the Holocene, approximately 11,500 years ago, many plants were domesticated for agriculture. These and the associated social and technological changes led to dense human settlements that then paved the...

-DNA According to the report, the rate of crimes per one lakh women in Delhi is 184.3, against 53.9 for the rest of the country The rate of violent incidents against women in the national Capital continues to remain “unacceptably high”. Delhi recorded the highest number of such incidents among all states and Union Territories (UT) in the last four years, according to a recent report. The report titled ‘Safety of women...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: While only 1.9% government schools in rural Jharkhand do not have toilets, students of 35.3% government schools in these areas are debarred from using toilets, which are despite having the facility in their campus, the latest Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) has said, highlighting the lackadaisical approach of the government in maintaining the infrastructure they invest in. In 2016, the state government claimed that almost all 40,000 odd...

-Village Square High levels of arsenic in the water supply is afflicting many villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh but the government hasn’t been able to design and implement any program to contain the menace Ballia (Uttar Pradesh): Ekawana Rajpur is a village in Belhari administrative block along the banks of the Ganga and 16km from Ballia town in eastern Uttar Pradesh where villagers commonly suffer from afflictions such as itchy skin lesions,...

-The Tribune SC issues notice to Centre, states, UTs, RBI to look into farmer suicides New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre, states, union territories and the RBI asking them to suggest measures to deal with SITuations created by natural calamities and indebtedness that often force farmers to commit suicide. A Bench header by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar asked them to file their responses in four...