Biking along the Yamuna from Delhi to Agra, ravleen kaur hears constant calls for saving the river, but witnesses little action. Photographs by vaibhav raghunandan The roaring of motorcycles shattered the early morning calm on the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi. On World Environment Day on June 5, a group of professionals, farmers, activists and journalists gathered for a bike rally along the

Varanasi: Groundwater in Varanasi and adjoining areas is contaminated with uranium, according to a study by a group of scientists. The study conducted by G.C. Chowdhary, former Professor at the Geology Department of Banaras Hindu University, and S.K. Agarwal, also a professor of Geology, has shown that the drinking water in the University premises and some other places in the city contains more radioactive uranium than the recommended limit. Samples for the study were collected from 11 tubewells tapping deep aquifers (more than 100 metre deep).

A deep rumble, like the steady snores of a sleeping giant, envelops the factory. The temperature is nearly 75 degree celsius near the furnace, the surface temperature being around 300 degree celsius.

Heedless of the heat, men armed with steel rods, the tips glowing, walk to and fro thrusting the ends into the furnace, wrapping gleaming molten glass around the rods.

FOUR years after it was advised by the Central Advisory Board of Education to focus on universalising secondary education, the government seems to have taken the first concrete step. In its final lap, the UPA government set in motion the process to ensure that children in the 15 to 16 years age group have access to affordable secondary (classes IX and X) education. The Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) has been given the green signal by the expenditure finance committee. The HRD ministry will now seek Cabinet's approval for the programme.

The level of corruption is "alarming" in the states of Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, says a new survey based on experience of Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in availing various public services last year. The 'India Corruption Study 2007', brought out by NGOs Transparency International India (TII) and Centre for Media Studies (CMS), found that about one-third of Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in the country bribed officials to avail a total of 11 services -- from police to PDS.

It is an innocuous practice in offices in Uttar Pradesh to order tea from the nearest roadside dhaba. What is not so innocuous is how the tea is carried to these offices

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has demanded a complete ban on construction along the banks of the Ganga. He has also threatened to launch a nationwide campaign if the Government goes ahead with the Ganga Expressway project. "The proposed large-scale construction under the Ganga Expressway project along the banks of the river will severely strain the already endangered holy river which is not only a life-line for crores of Indians but also a subject of faith,' he said on Sunday.

Despite huge investments in the health sector and vast manpower deployed, Uttar Pradesh has become a cauldron of diseases. Every second child in the state is under the threat of being attacked by diseases like encephalitis, measles, polio, dengue, malaria, tuberculosis, not to talk of diseases like diarrhoea of which no one keeps a record, but which has a high mortality rate.