-The Indian Express Last month, a 12-year-old Dalit boy in Jodhpur was beaten up by his teacher for allegedly taking a plate from a stack MEAnt for upper castes. The Indian Express visits schools across the country where lessons in caste differences start early. Chennai: IN the schools of Tirunelveli, about 650 km south of Chennai, caste comes in shades of red, yellow, green and saffron. It’s what students wear on...

-The Indian Express It is said the pollution from burning paddy straw is a factor in Delhi's poor air quality. Chandigarh: The burning of paddy straw continues unabated in both Punjab and Haryana with authorities in both the states unable to check the menace. With the harvesting season at the fag end, the farmers are now clearing their fields by burning the paddy straw causing air pollution. It is said the pollution from burning...

-The Indian Express Government cannot afford to wait any longer to address the building agricultural distress. The government and the political class seem oblivious to a deepening farm crisis, resulting from back-to-back monsoon failures and falling crop prices. One indicator of the growing agrarian distress is farmer suicides, no longer a phenomenon confined to Vidarbha or Telangana. The current year has seen farmers even in states like Karnataka, Odisha and Madhya...

-The Hindu Scientists raise concern over frequent and irresponsible use of antibiotics by animal farm industry Frequent and irresponsible use of antibiotics by the animal farm industry is leading to difficulties in treating common bacterial infections as well as post-surgery infections, a panel of scientists warned at a meeting organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on antibiotic resistance, on Tuesday. Dr. Chand Wattal, senior consultant in the Department of Microbiology...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Maharashtra has been ranked fourth in the country by an index that MEAsures how effectively states have transferred power to panchayats, more than two decades after the Constitution was amended to empower the institution. The rankings are part of a report titled 'How Effective is Devolution across Indian states' compiled by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for the Panchayati Raj ministry. "The novelty of the...