-The Hindu An estimated 10 million people in nine districts of West Bengal drink arsenic-laden groundwater. Priyanka Pulla finds that despite alarms having been sounded over decades, the State government has moved at a glacial pace to tackle the crisis, while people struggle to cope with the symptoms On a Thursday morning at the government primary school in Madhusudankati, a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a gaggle of five-year-olds...

-VillageSquare.in The country’s particularly vulnerable tribal groups, who live mostly in dwindling forests, have not been well served by the government’s administrative machinery, but have slowly been reduced to virtual serfdom Max Weber, the 19thcentury German sociologist, had extolled the virtues of bureaucracy. India used to celebrate its steel frame governing the country for decades, and which continues to rule us till date, though it is unfashionable to sing its virtues any...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: More than 40 people were killed on Sunday across the country as rain, thunderstorms hit various states throwing life out of gear and leaving behind a trail of destruction. Deaths were reported from Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi-NCR. 18 people killed as thunderstorm hits Uttar Pradesh At least 18 people were killed and 28 injured in hail and thunderstorm that hit different parts of...

-TheWire.in A report points at how a large number of Muslims feel they are implicated in terrorism cases, Dalits for petty crimes, and Adivasis for being Maoists. Muslim representation in the police force remains abysmally low whereas the community continues to have a disproportionately high representation in prisons, a report brought out by Common Cause and the Lokniti-Programme for Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has...

-The Hindu Parched throats can bring down governments; hence leaders rush to claim credit for ‘water ATMs’ set up in villages Tumakuru/ Bagepalli (Karnataka): Early in 2016, in the grip of drought for the fourth straight year, people of Pathapalli were in a rage. Surrounded by barren flatlands and rocky hills along the Andhra Pradesh boundary, the village had been facing an acute drinking water shortage. The people went on a protest...