-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Terming some of the answers provided by Walmart as "incomprehensible" and parts of the deposition by its just departed India boss Raj Jain as "ambiguous", a government committee set up to look into whether the US behemoth indulged in bribery in India, has refused to give it a clean chit, complicating its efforts to draw a line under the episode. The one-man committee under Justice Mukul Mudgal...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has decided to put a blanket ban on several websites that allow users to share pornographic content. In an order dated June 13, department of telecom (DoT) has directed internet service providers (ISPs) to block 39 websites. Most of them are web forums, where internet users share images and URLs to download pornographic files. But some of these websites are also image hosts and...

-The Hindu This year, the monsoon has been in rumbustious form. It swept in to Kerala on June 1 and then headed off north with surprising rapidity. So much so that the rain-bearing cloud systems covered the whole country by June 16, a process that is typically completed only by around the middle of next month. Moreover, it has rained copiously. Consequently, about three-quarters of the country have received much...

Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....

-The Hindu     Unorthodox models of conservation are needed to save this elusive and magnificent big bird "Have you seen the Big Five?" That's the question you will invariably be asked if you visit the East African states. The Big Five, Africa's largest, and thus most prominent, mammals - the lion, the rhino, the leopard, the buffalo and the elephant - have dominated camp fire stories, tourist expectations and the growth of conservation. Across...