-The Times of India   India's towns are worse than its villages when it comes to the child sex ratio (CSR), but its biggest cities are even worse. Against an overall ratio of 914 girls for 1,000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years, the urban ratio is 902 but the combined figure for cities with a population of a million or more is just 898. Look through the data for the...

-The Telegraph   Bengal education minister Bratya Basu today said the state government would next month notify rules to implement the right to education act, a requirement for central assistance to set up elementary schools. Basu, who was here for a conference of state education ministers on the one-and-a-half-year-old law, said the rules were “almost ready”. “We will notify the rules by November. Then we will demand the additional grants that we have not...

IT IS one of the inspirational legends of Indian journalism that James Hickey, founder and editor of the Bengal Gazette — this country’s first newspaper, with its first edition going back to January 1780 — was a fearless seeker of the truth, taken to court and imprisoned by Warren Hastings, then governor-general. Reality is a little different. Hickey’s paper was often a gossipy, yellow rag. It thought nothing of publishing scurrilous...

NPCIL asked to submit documentary evidence   If the commissioning of the first two units of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) has been stalled by protests from the locals backed by the State Government, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is sweating it out with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to obtain final clearance for units three to six (KKNPP 3–6). MoEF's Expert Appraisal Committee once again deferred...

The members of Bhartiya Kisan Union on Tuesday threatened to take a six-month holiday every year for 10 years from framing if the government fails to take note of the hardship faced by farmers over rising prices and acquisition of farm land for commercial activity. Rakesh Tikait of Uttar Pradesh said with increasing input costs, farmers were finding it difficult to cultivate round the year. “If the government does not pay...