A study conducted by Greenpeace India, a voluntary organisation working on environmental issues, has reported an alarming rise in the concentration of harmful nitrates in drinking water in Malwa.

While Punjab claims to have become the first state in north India to have installed reverse osmosis (RO) plants to provide safe drinking water, the poor quality of drinking water is reported to be main reason behind the death of 30 prisoners in Faridkot Central Jail in the last two years.

Though these deaths in the jail, led to protests by the inmates, the jail authorities are still waiting for funds to arrange for the supply of safe drinking water.

To ascertain the exact count of farmer suicides in the state, the government has finally decided to conduct the second round of survey, which would reveal the number of farm suicides from 2010 up t

To find out a permanent solution of waterlogging in southwestern Punjab, comprising Muktsar, Fazilka and Faridkot districts, the Drainage Department will take help from the Indian Space Research Or

At a time when the descendants of the late Harinder Singh, last ruler of the erstwhile state of Faridkot, were engaged in a prolonged legal battle over property, the area lost precious forest cover

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed e-auction of minor mineral quarries in 19 districts of Punjab.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the e-auction of minor-mineral quarries in 19 districts of Punjab.

The e-auction of 115 minor-mineral — sand or gravel — quarries in 19 of the state’s 22 districts was to be held from July 1 to 3. But, the state had proposed to postpone the auction to July 9.

The Health Department may claim to have covered 97.78 per cent population of the state in the door-to-door cancer headcount drive, but in Faridkot the discrepancy between the cases reported in the survey and the number of patients under treatment at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital (GGSMCH) has raised doubts about the survey’s credibility.

As per the survey, there are 785 cancer patients in Faridkot, which has a population of 6.18 lakh. However, in the oncology department of the GGSMCH, 818 patients from Faridkot district are getting treatment for the disease.

In 2009, a government survey had counted 7,738 people living with cancer across Punjab. Now that a fresh survey has counted 23,874, over three times as high, the government has acknowledged the need to identify the causes and tackle what is clearly a menace.

"Fresh studies will have to be undertaken, especially for areas where cancer incidence is high," says Health Minister Madan Mohan Mittal. The nearly 24,000 cases detected was in addition to over 33,000 deaths from cancer-related causes in the last five years — around 18 a day — and 84,453 people who showed cancer-like symptoms but who hadn't yet been diagnosed with the disease.