The ongoing droughts and water crises in Maharashtra and Gujarat point to the multiple conflicts the beleaguered and scarce resource of water is likely to spark in the coming years. India is today the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, but it is clear that how we extract, harvest, distribute and manage our most precious resource cannot proceed along usual lines. The unsustainable over-extraction is heralding a fall in the water-table and...

-The Telegraph Siliguri, April 7: If the panchayat system is dissolved and not replaced by newly elected bodies on time, at least three central schemes would come to a halt in the state, Jairam Ramesh said today. According to the Union rural development minister the national job scheme for villagers, which entails 100-days work for at least one member of a BPL family, would be hit the most. The other two schemes...

-Live Mint Farmers resisting India's biggest FDI deal are paying a heavy price for their stand In June 2005, the Orissa government signed the country's biggest foreign direct investment deal yet with the South Korean steel manufacturer Posco for a $12 billion (around `65,856 crore) plant near Paradip in the mineral-rich state. Livelihoods in eight existing agricultural and fishing villages were to give way for the project that was intended to be...

-The Times of India The report of the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) on the Delhi government for the year ended March 2012 is a scathing indictment of many departments and public utilities. Healthcare, transport, power, water and sewage and even showcase infrastructure projects and schemes have been put under the lens and the picture that has emerged is not all that pretty. The report was tabled in the Delhi assembly...

-PTI The condition of government hospitals in Delhi drew a sharp criticism from Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which, in its report found several glaring shortcomings like unavailability of blood banks in five hospitals. The CAG today painted a sorry state of affairs at government hospitals in the national capital in its report for the fiscal year ending March 2012, which was tabled in Delhi Assembly. The government auditor said that scrutiny of...