The production of pulses in the country has been hit by a pest called pod borer. The common pest which attacks all pulses, chick pea, pigeon pea, gram, groundnut and lentils is a cause of worry for farmers in several states. The National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) has developed a technology based on Beauveria bassiana, a fungus, which is effective against pod borer of chick pea and pigeon pea and...

That India marries off its daughters in such a hurry that they have little time to grow out of their teens is a fact that no longer raises eyebrows. But what should come as a shock to a country that preens itself over its growing economic prowess is that we fare worse than sub-Saharan Africa, or for that matter, all of Africa put together, when it comes to child marriage. If...

Right to information (RTI) activist and social worker Hemant Patil Saturday filed a petition in the Bombay High Court alleging irregularities in various trusts run by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare. Patil, president of the Rashtriya Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jana Shakti, has in his public interest litigation (PIL) sought a probe into Hazare's trusts by the Income Tax department. 'It appears that the Hind Swaraj Trust (of Hazare) is not functioning in accordance with...

Tihar jail today has the largest collection of charged or convicted top officials, a powerful ex-minister, sundry politicians and officials. Maharashtra had a teflon-coated chief minister who was ‘sacked’ to a cabinet post in Delhi after being long untouched by many scandals. Another just exited. A former Jharkhand chief minister is in jail on charges of looting his state treasury and accumulating funds abroad. The powerful founder of the Nationalist...

The 1985 Lokpal Bill destroyed the raison d'etre of the institution of an ombudsman, but all successive governments copied it. PUBLIC anger was understandably aroused over the gross delay by Parliament in the last 40 years to enact a Lokpal Bill and with the toothless one that the government sponsored. It is not widely known that the delay was aggravated by deception and fraud in 1985. It was, however, emulated by...