-The Indian Express The Haryana Police are installing fingerprint scanners at border checkposts in a bid to check crime in the state. Visitors entering through 30 checkposts on Haryana’s borders with Delhi, Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh will be randomly stopped and asked to undergo the test, which will then be checked against a database of known criminals in the state and neighbouring districts. The scanners have already been procured...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH/AMBALA/YAMUNANAGAR/KURUKSHETRA: Even as Punjab and Haryana governments are getting ready for procurement of paddy from October 1, the previously stocked wheat has not been cleared from mandis across the two states. The storage houses and government godowns are packed with previous year's produce, leaving no space for the fresh produce in the country's food bowl. Various food agencies have stocked 1.45 crore tonne wheat and paddy in...

-Tehelka Are we eating sugar which small kids are producing as bonded labour? FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Mahendra Singh used to live with his parents and two siblings in the Jahangirpuri slum area of New Delhi until the morning he was abducted, trafficked and then callously ‘sold’ to a sugarcane farmer of Haryana’s Karnal district. Mahendra was made to work as a bonded labourer in the sugarcane fields for three-and-a-half long years, until he finally...

-The Hindu The traditional ration cards will soon be replaced by smarts cards in Gurgaon as part of a pilot project by the Union Government in Haryana and Chandigarh to streamline the Public Distribution System. Announcing this at Gymkhana Club here, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary (Food & Supplies Department) Shakuntala Jakhu said that the task of preparing smart cards will be first taken up in the Pataudi block of Gurgaon. Besides...

State governments in north India have put their agriculture officials on alert with the yellow rust disease affecting the winter wheat crop in parts of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The fungal disease forms yellow stripes on leaves, hindering photosynthesis and leading to stunted growth and shrivelled grain. India needs a bumper wheat crop this year to meet growing demand in ration shops as well as in the open market. The Haryana agriculture...