'70 per cent of sewage flows untreated into the river along its entire course. Hardwar and Rishikesh remain two of our holiest cities. Then why has the government failed to do anything?' 'If Modi can do with the Ganga what he has done with the Sabarmati, that will be a major achievement.'
The National Green Tribunal on Wednesday directed the principal committee, constituted for rejuvenation of Yamuna, to inspect the site on river floodplains where a three-day festival was organised by Art of Living under the patronage of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Were river experts excluded from IIT consortium on the Ganga River Basin Management Plan? Rashme Sehgal reports.
Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharati recently reiterated her commitment towards making the Yamuna Shuddikaran Abhiyan a success but said little else. It is obvious that in comparison to the Ganga about which she waxes eloquent at the drop of a hat, her treatment towards Yamuna can at best be described as step-motherly. Rashme Sehgal reports on efforts to save the river.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inducted 19 new ministers into his Cabinet on Tuesday has carried out major changes in the portfolios of his top ministers.
The MNF came to power in the state winning 26 of the 40 seats in the state assembly uprooting the Congress from its last bastion in the Northeast.
'Two have already sacrificed their lives.' 'How many more shall need to sacrifice before the government listens?' 'Four, five or six? They are ready, waiting.' After Ganga campaigner G D Agrawal's death, a Haridwar ashram's sadhus are on a relay fast unto death.
He dropped those perceived to be non-performers or whose integrity came into question, and also where it was felt they needed to learn a lesson or two in humility.
Even as India gears up for election results on May 16, a group of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have taken up an informal initiative to see how a 'Modi ministry' will look like, in case the party forms the government at the Centre.
A selection of some interesting stories from Wednesday that you possibly would not have read in your newspaper.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday constituted a Cabinet committee to oversee reconstruction and rehabilitation in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.
'Unlike on the western and eastern borders where there is an enemy at the gate, here there is an invisible enemy which is building its own capability and can come into play at a time and place of his choosing.'
This was disclosed at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi on Thursday
'Tiger reserves were created to protect areas from developmental activities.' 'If we go ahead with these projects, then it is a complete mockery of our institutions and our laws, it is against everything we have stood for, our Forest Conservation Act, our Wildlife Biodiversity Act.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Tanzania where he held talks with Tanzanian President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli.
'I can assure you the Ganga will be more polluted in 2030 than it is now.' 'What they are trying to do now is clean the Ganga without understanding how to do so.'
"We have reached a conclusion that river Saraswati existed, it flowed. It originated in the Himalayas and met gulf at the western sea," Professor K S Valdiya, who led the panel, said while handing over the report to the government.
'In the coming two-three months, we need to be cautious that there is no upsurge'
It was supposed to be a happy journey to London, one that the Imam family had been planning for the past two months. Everything was set - except the visa, which did not arrive in time for one of its members. "Visa was the villain...As a consequence, half of the family of four will be in London today and the other half at home in India and the US, respectively," Sanjar Imam, director of travel firm Panache World, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.
'It is also being done in violation of our Forest Tribal Act because it will involve the eviction of the tribals living in these forests.'
100 square kilometre of Panna Tiger Reserve could go under water, writes Nitin Sethi.
Khandu emerged as the new star on the north eastern horizon when he was elected leader of the Congress in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday.
In a major policy speech on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the world will not allow China to treat the strategically important South China Sea (SCS) as its 'maritime empire' and vowed to support worried Southeast Asian countries against Beijing's 'campaign of bullying' to control the resource-rich region.
The HMO said it will amend the rules to increase the time limit of filing of appeals in foreigners tribunals from 60 to 120 days for those who would be excluded from the final NRC.
'Why should the people of Odisha divert water from the Mahanadhi when 13 out of 32 districts are chronically drought prone?' 'Water is a state subject. Can you really nationalise rivers for which you need drastic amendments in the Constitution?'
'If you weed out corruption, you will bring glory to Goa.'
Vidya Charan Shukla, a former union minister and Congress veteran from Chhattisgarh, died on Tuesday in a Gurgaon hospital after battling injuries sustained in a deadly naxal attack on a convoy of party leaders a fortnight ago.
Agri experts are meeting FinMin ministry officials on Monday to give their inputs on the Budget.
The minister said that the priority for him will be "rolling out all stuck highway projects that include many of the IL&FS projects within 100 days".
'The present government swears by Hinduism. But we lost three of our sants during earlier BJP regimes.'
Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde left for New Delhi on Monday, where he is expected to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi and submit his views on the change of leadership in Maharashtra and also suggest measures to revive the party ahead of the assembly elections slated for September-October.
The Telangana Group of Ministers on Friday reviewed the progress made by the Andhra Pradesh government with regards to the bifurcation of the state on various fronts.
Harish Rawat, a Union Minister, was on Saturday sworn in as the new chief minister of Uttarakhand, succeeding Vijay Bahuguna who was asked by the Congress high command to step down in a bid to boost the party's prospects ahead of the April-May Lok Sabha polls.
India loses 333 acres of prime forest every day. Instead of working to conserve India's forests and water resources, the environment minister has set up a committee to 'dismantle' the five key laws that provide environmental protection.
Concerns have been raised about the likely damage to the environment caused by holding it on the flood plains of the already polluted river in east Delhi.
The Petroleum Ministry may have watered down its preconditions for approving mining group Vedanta Resources' acquisition of Cairn India, but the $9.6 billion deal will still hinges on no-objection from partner ONGC.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
In an affidavit filed in the top court, the health ministry told the apex court that the family welfare programme in the country is voluntary in nature, which enables couples to decide the size of their family and adopt family planning methods best suited to them, according to their choice and without any compulsion.
Taking note of large-scale deaths because of the heat wave in various parts of country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked a Group of Ministers to discuss and decide on its inclusion as natural calamity.
Through the past 18-month period, peace has prevailed in the disputed border regions, which was immensely helpful in the difficult situation that the country was passing through, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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