-The Times of India PUNE: Less than a fortnight ago, the state education department had stirred up a hornet's nest when it announced that kindergartens would now come under the purview of Right to Education Act, putting a spanner in their ongoing admission process. Much confusion prevailed followed by a flurry of clarifications from the government asking them to go ahead with their admission process as long as they kept 25...

-Frontline Farmers protest against the Central clearance for coal bed methane exploration in Mannargudi, Tamil Nadu, as they fear it will devastate agriculture in Tiruvarur and Thanjavur districts.  THE woes of the delta farmers of Tamil Nadu are far from over. While the Cauvery tangle continues unresolved, they fear the proposed multi-crore project for commercial exploration and exploitation of coal bed methane (CBM) in the Mannargudi block of Tiruvarur district will prove...

-The Times of India Denials notwithstanding, the government indeed has been considering the idea of turning the Comptroller and Auditor General into a multi-member body as minister of state in Prime Minister's Office V Narayanaswamy said last week. Although the government had dropped the idea of turning the CAG into a multi-member body, agreeing with the federal auditor that the existing structure with a singular head was fine, it Dusted off the...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: Vector control is a baseless charade in Jharkhand, which grapples with a host of maladies like dengue, malaria, chikungunya, kala-azar and filaria every year and yet lacks a single specialist who can analyse and effectively arrest the scourge. Four posts of entomologists — two each for Ranchi and Hazaribagh zones — and two of assistant entomologists have been lying vacant for at least two years for reasons best known...

-NDTV With the blanket of smog over the Capital refusing to lift for the past one week, the Delhi government has called a meeting with neighbouring Punjab and Haryana tomorrow to tackle the situation . Saturday's meeting will be attended by secretaries of Delhi, Haryana and Punjab as well as scientists and environmentalists. They are expected to discuss the causes of the smog: rising pollution levels, impact of a growing number of...