-The Hindustan Times The flood situation in Assam worsened on Thursday with new areas coming under water and the toll reaching 22. Altogether, 21 districts have been affected following the week-long incessant rains. The river has breached embankment at five places, affecting 1,744 villages across nine districts and 70,000 hectares of crop land. The situation in Kamrup, Nalbari and Bongaigaon in lower Assam worsened on Thursday, after the tributaries of Brahmaputra breached their...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: Nithin Gollamudi, a city student dreams to be a doctor and secretly wants to be the state topper in medical entrance examination. Belonging to an economically and socially backward family, the 12-year-old who was helping his father in a masonry shop in Chotuppal till two years ago even while going to a nearby government school says that it would have been impossible for him to dream...

-The Telegraph Industries minister Partha Chatterjee today turned down a suggestion by CPM leader Surjya Kanta Mishra to follow the Tamil Nadu model by amending the central land acquisition act to fulfil its objective of returning land to Singur’s farmers instead of battling it out in court. The leader of the Opposition also assured Chatterjee that the Left Front would support the state government in the Assembly if it agreed to introduce...

-IANS Many chief ministers, including non-Congress ones, support the proposal to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said Wednesday. "Now you have a fairly good number of chief ministers who have come out in support...We have continued a dialogue in a democratic spirit, a very open dialogue with the states," Sharma told reporters here after Coca-Cola Chairman Muhtar Kent met him. Sharma said he had...

-PTI The Haryana Government has formulated a rural water policy for the state for the year 2012 in order to save precious drinking water by preventing wastage due to unmetered connections and open taps. A spokesman of the Public Health Engineering Department said that this policy has been formulated keeping in view the present scenario of wastage of water through unmetered connections provided to consumers in rural areas, which are being billed...