-The Hindu The trials and tribulations of Ashok Khemka and Sanjiv Chaturvedi expose Haryana’s intolerance of upright bureaucrats When Haryana’s top land registration official, Ashok Khemka, decided to probe Robert Vadra’s land deals in the State, he perhaps never anticipated the kind of animosity that his actions against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law would generate within the government. Or, maybe he did, but went ahead nevertheless, hoping that a proactive media would...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: Vector control is a baseless charade in Jharkhand, which grapples with a host of maladies like dengue, malaria, chikungunya, kala-azar and filaria every year and yet lacks a single specialist who can analyse and effectively arrest the scourge. Four posts of entomologists — two each for Ranchi and Hazaribagh zones — and two of assistant entomologists have been lying vacant for at least two years for reasons best known...

Since early November, Delhi and large parts of North India have been enveloped in a thick, grey smog, sparking concerns and a debate on what is leading to the rising levels of air pollution. A January 2012 paper by Ridhima Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi is drawing linkages between the quality of air in the capital and agricultural practices during harvest season on farms in the neighbouring state...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: Talodhi, a village in Chandrapur district, is emerging as a centre for 'rice breeding' in literal sense. Two retired agricultural scientists from city, a big farming family from the village, the Poshattiwars, and some local farmers have joined hands in developing new genetically pure varieties from locally available varieties. It would not be an exaggeration if Poshattiwars and their team of farmers are called 'farmer scientists' as...

-The Times of India SURI: A clash between farmers and policemen at the site of a mining project in Birbhum left 37 people injured on Tuesday and conjured up images of Nandigram, opening a new frontier in Bengal's bloody land battles. The protesters alleged police opened fire when they refused to let them take away earth-moving equipment brought in by a coal mining company. The equipment was stranded at the site after...