-The Indian Express Serkapadi, Rayagada: Vedanta Aluminium's controversial plan to mine the Niyamgiri hills for bauxite received a major jolt Thursday after local tribal people unanimously rejected the proposal, claiming religious and cultural rights over the entire hills after 200 minutes of high drama and suspense. In the first of the 12 pallisabhas or village meetings held in Serkapadi on the hills of Rayagada district, 36 registered voters of the village present...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Prices of vegetables and spices have dropped up to 20% in the past month and are likely to remain low as higher output along with the brisk start to the monsoon has calmed the market. The drop in vegetable prices, on top of the global fall in various commodities from Aluminium to zinc, is good news for policymakers as stubbornly high inflation has hindered moves to cut interest...

-The Hindu Chennai: A team led by an IIT-Madras professor has devised a cheap and effective method to produce clean drinking water. It will soon be possible to produce 10 litres of water - free of bacteria and virus - at just Rs. 10-12 per month, for the daily consumption of a family of five. Prof. T. Pradeep of the department of chemistry at IIT-M and his team have made use of silver...

-IPS News India's planners worry about ‘jobless growth', but perhaps nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than a policy of handing over the collection and disposal of the capital's refuse to large private corporations, leaving close to 50,000 ragpickers unemployed. For decades ragpickers provided a service to this city, scavenging waste for recyclable plastic, Aluminium, glass and other materials, and earning a livelihood by selling their pickings to contractors with equipment to process...

-The Telegraph Offices of the Saradha Group and some other deposit-collection companies were attacked across Bengal on Saturday. Here is a glimpse of the unrest that has gripped the state. Trinamul headquarters in Topsia What happened They came in droves from the two 24-Parganas, Howrah and several other places and party general secretary Mukul Roy was forced to call some of them to a meeting. The agents outside said they were being hounded by depositors...