So it's not going to be a normal monsoon . That's hardly surprising. Indian rainfall is erratic in four out of 10 years. About 80% of our land mass is highly vulnerable to drought, floods and cyclones. 50 million Indians are exposed to drought every year. The agriculture ministry says 68% of India's sown area is subject to drought in varying degrees. Annual average rainfall is 1,160 mm. However, 85% of...

  Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

RTI activist Akhil Gogoi, who was arrested from Guwahati Press Club, was remanded to three days’ police custody. He was arrested for criminal offences for Damaging public property, interference in the working of government officials on duty, physically harming government officials, illegally organising meetings, engaging in public fight, accomplishing crime through accomplices, carrying weapons to destroy public property etc. during a protest march against eviction drive of the state government....

-Outlook   The secret behind the Ganga’s ability to self-rejuvenate its waters continues to elude discovery In 2009, when C.S. Nautiyal, now the director of Lucknow’s National Botanical Research Institute, spiked a fresh Ganga water sample with an infectious strain of Escherichia coli to test the Ganga’s reported self-healing qualities, he found that the bacteria lasted no longer than three days. He repeated the experiment with a 16-year-old sample of Ganga...

The Assam Government on Thursday ordered an additional Chief Secretary-level probe into Wednesday's incidents in the city, where anti-eviction protesters went on the rampage and the police opened fire, resulting in the death of three persons. The government directed the administration to gather video footage of the incidents and initiate legal action against protesters who came armed with lathis and stones and indulged in violence, causing Damage to public and private...