-The Times of India ALLAHABAD: Taking a serious note of indiscriminate encroachment of ponds in the state, which is lowering the water table in the region, the Allahabad High Court has suggested that a special law should be enacted to protect and preserve the ponds, which are not only essential elements of village habitat but also valuable assets for the state. The court observed that a special procedure should be provided in...

-The Hindustan Times A couple of months ago, I was in South Block for a meeting at the ministry of defence. Security norms dictate leaving mobile and electronic devices at the checkpoint. Imagine my horror when I came back an hour later to see one of the guards going through my iPad. This cavalier attitude towards individual privacy is illustrative of an interesting dilemma between the inevitability of a more intrusive...

-The Business Standard Dehradun: The immediate aftermath of a disaster almost always brings out angry responses. The tragic incident in Uttarakhand is no exception. Many experts, who belong to the "I told you so" camp, have come out with their own causal analysis of the tragedy. While town planners are blaming the rapid expansion of construction activities, naturalists are of the view that the disaster is nature's way of restoring balance...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Large numbers of poor and vulnerable are exposed to risks and unexpected difficulties like unemployment, ill health, and natural disasters, an Asian Development Bank ( ADB) study says, because of lack of adequate social protection systems in many fast-growing middle-income countries in Asia and the Pacific. The Social Protection Index: Assessing Results for Asia and the Pacific-released on Wednesday gives India a score of 0.051, below most...

-The Hindu Deputy Commissioner asks officials to redouble efforts against illegal activities Gulbarga: Deputy Commissioner N.S. Prasanna Kumar on Wednesday reaffirmed that there would not be any let-up in the crackdown against illegal extraction and hoarding of sand and the district officials have been asked to redouble their efforts to put down such illegal activities. Talking to presspersons here, Mr. Prasanna Kumar said that 350 truckloads of sand illegally hoarded in open spaces...