The D.C.O. Matiari Dr Baqaullah Unar has put a ban on paddy cultivation throughout the district, directing the agriculture officials to guide the growers to switch over to alternative crops. He asked the concerned authorities to take strict measures to restrict rice cultivation.

Ranchi, April 27: The depleting ground water table across the urban landscape of Jharkhand has reached alarming levels, exposing sections of the population to arsenic poisoning and forcing others to contemplate relocating as more and more residential areas slowly turn dry.

Lucknow: On the occasion of the Earth Day, a seminar on

Ludhiana: Usually, environmental issues are at the bottom of the priority list of elected representatives, but Avinash Rai Khanna, BJP MP from Hoshairpur, claims to be different. At a recent visit to Ludhiana, he urged people to save one litre of water each.

Privatizing power: The Sri Lankan parliament passed the controversial new electricity bill, with amendments, on March 3. The Act will curb the monopoly of the Ceylon Electricity Board (ceb) over generation, transmission and supply of electricity in the country. It was passed by 109 to 40 votes. ceb was incurring huge losses and not able to provide reasonable service. Though some ceb unions

M. Balaganessin

CREATING AWARENESS: Students taking out a rally on the occasion of

VIRUDHUNAGAR: The district administration has released Rs.1.25 crore to farmers for artificial recharging of ground water in 3,271 irrigation wells in the district till December 2008.

Collector K. Raghupathi said that while small and marginal farmers were given Rs.4,000 as subsidy for constructing recharge filters, other farmers were being given Rs.2,000 as subsidy.