-The Hindu   We need freeways, but we also need forests. Crimes against women have been constantly in the news. But crimes against nature remain largely unreported. Given the current climate, with the Intelligence Bureau claiming that non-governmental organisations like the crusading international environmental group Greenpeace, are detrimental to India's progress, and with the ubiquitous ‘foreign hand' making a serendipitous comeback, such crimes are likely to become invisible, noticed only by those who have...

-Live Mint   Programme that aims to provide basic facilities such as drinking Water may focus on census towns and small cities New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is likely to announce a mission aimed at providing urban facilities in rural areas in the Union budget in July, a promise the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling coalition, made in its election manifesto. The mission is aimed at providing...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundWater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the Waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...

-The Hindu 20-litre mineral Water cans to be supplied at Rs.2 to each household Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh): The Cabinet sub-committee on NTR Sujala Sravanthi scheme to provide packaged drinking Water to every habitation in Andhra Pradesh has tentatively decided to launch the first phase of the scheme from October. Of 47,190 habitations in the State, about 5,200 villages were identified for supply in the first phase where at present the drinking Water supply...

-The Hindu   Kolkata (West Bengal): Of the 341 blocks in the State, 81 blocks have Water with more arsenic than the permissible limit and 49 blocks with more fluoride than the standard value. North 24 Parganas district, where about 20 blocks are affected with arsenic contamination, is the worst affected and is followed by Nadia, where 17 blocks and Murshidabad with 14 blocks where arsenic in groundWater is higher than the limit. Certain...