-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Nearly four months after the Samajwadi Party government started distributing free laptops to students in line with Akhilesh Yadav's poll promise, over 4.4 lakh devices worth over Rs 830 crore still lie in government godowns exposed to dirt and rain water as the chief minister struggles to get time to distribute them himself. The chief minister has so far been able to distribute only 79000 laptops...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women's employment has taken an alarming dip in rural areas in the past two years, a government survey has revealed. In jobs that are done for 'the major part of the year', a staggering 9.1 million jobs were lost by rural women. In urban areas, the SITuation was quite the reverse, with over 3.5 million women added to the workforce. This emerges from comparing employment data...

-PTI KANPUR: The water level in the Ganga in Kanpur is a mere 46-cm below the danger mark, prompting the district administration to issue a high alert for the villages SITuated on the banks of the river, officials said. "The water in the river is currently flowing at 113.54m, above the red mark of 113m, and a few centimetres below the danger mark of 114m," said the nodal officer for relief work...

-The Economic Times The monsoon made a dream start this year. Bountiful rainfall in June has prepared the ground for bumper harvest and lower food inflation. But don't celebrate. Look beyond the immediate future and good monsoon this year may not really be good news. It has merely delayed an agricultural crisis, which our complacent policymakers perhaps need to jolt them into action. With food demand rising in step with the growing...

-The Hindu Political parties are ‘deeply concerned' and even ‘outraged' at the Supreme Court verdict that any person in custody - whether convicted or not - could not contest elections. Even as they had apprehensions, politicians had ‘cautiously welcomed' the verdict, which disqualified convicted lawmakers from holding office or contesting polls. But the judgment barring those imprisoned from fighting polls has opened up prospects of a confrontation between the judiciary and the...