-The Times of India PATNA: In an apparent move to politically besiege PM Narendra Modi on his announcements during the recently concluded assembly elections, CM Nitish Kumar on Tuesday urged the assembly speaker to form a joint committee of state legislature to monitor execution of works under all the schemes listed in the much-publicised Rs 1.65 lakh crore special package for Bihar. The CM proposed that the joint committee should be headed...

Varanasi, which is known as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency during 2014, has hit the headlines recently due to people's struggle for water rights. Altogether 18 village councils (Gram panchayats) of Varanasi have written recently to Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board to stop overexploitation of groundwater by the Coca-Cola bottling plant, which is situated in Mehdiganj (please click here to access their letters).   The village councils, which have...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Donations to political parties increased by 151% this year as compared to the last year but details regarding donors continue to remain elusive. National political parties received Rs 622.38 crore from 1,695 donations in 2014-2015 as compared to Rs 247.77 crore collected last fiscal. While Congress did not disclose cheque or DD numbers for 192 donations amounting to Rs 138.98 crore (that's 98% of its contribution),...

-PTI A Parliamentary Standing Committee has termed steps taken by Delhi Police on improving women’s safety as “disheartening” and asked the force to chalk out effective and resilient strategies to combat crime against women instead of “shrugging off” its responsibility. The report of the 189th Standing Committee on Home Ministry tabled in Parliament on Monday took note of several steps taken by Delhi Police which included no harassment of complainant or victims...

-The Hindu 2015’s El Niño on course to being the strongest ever. The highest daily rainfall in a century. Freak weather conditions on one day. The hottest-ever Indian Ocean. The strongest-ever El Niño. The hottest year on record. The bad news is that a perfect storm of meteorological conditions combined to create Chennai’s worst-ever deluge last week, exacerbated in no small part by civic infrastructure pushed to its limit and systemic dysfunction. The...