Alleging that Uttar Pradesh is the most corrupt of all states, the Congress today asked social activist Anna Hazare to start a movement from the state if he wanted to start a state-based campaign. "UP is having the most corrupt system with maximum cases of human rights violation, if Hazare wants to start any such movement he should start it from here," UPPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi said in a reply...

With an eye on Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year, Vilasrao Deshmukh’s Rural Development Ministry appears to have decided to pin down the Mayawati-led BSP government over the implementation of the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme (NREGS) in the state. The Rural Development Ministry has constituted a 10-member committee to look into loopholes in the implementation of the scheme in the pocket boroughs of Congress president Sonia Gandhi...

The Lok Pal (anti-corruption body) Bill has generated widespread interest in the past few days. The Bill is an attempt by the government, under massive pressure due to corruption charges, to gain some of its lost ground. However, civil rights activists, including Anna Hazare, Swami Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal, have termed the draft legislation as weak and demanded that fifty per cent of the members in the committee drafting...

The yellow rust disease that hit parts of the crucial wheat-producing States in northern India will hit production by about 5 lakh tonnes, informed sources have said. Although the Agriculture Ministry is said to have taken “timely action,” about 3 lakh hectares under wheat was hit by the yellow rust, a fungal disease that affects the leaves of the standing crop by forming yellow stripes that do not allow photosynthesis to...

For the first time in five decades, Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a decline in the decadal growth rate of its population. According to the data released by the Directorate of Census Operations in Lucknow on Tuesday, the state has registered a decrease of 5.76 per cent, with its population growth coming down from 25.85 per cent in 1991-2001 to 20.09 per cent in 2001-11. However, Uttar Pradesh with its population...