VARANASI: A group of citizens started a campaign aimed at ridding Varanasi of the dust that is finding its way into the bodies of lakhs of people living here.

As governments grapple with mounting quantities of waste and draft policies to tackle it, waste pickers who earn their livelihood from collection, segregation and disposal of waste still remain neglected, reveals a new study by a non-government organisation.

Accessing the welfare programmes and the prevalent rules for waste management in 14 major cities, Chintan, an environment action and research group, in its report ‘Failing the Grade’ has claimed that there was no city that has fully implemented the rules and policies for waste pickers.

After being lambasted for mindless spending over "dream projects" full of statues, Mayawati has decided to change her outlook on expense. The chief minister has already spent over Rs 2,600 crore on building memorials and parks and named them after Dalit icons, herself included.

Mayawati
Ganga clean-up

LUCKNOW: Metered water supply is going to be introduced in seven cities of Uttar Pradesh with the user charges being determined by the quantum of water used by the consumers. The system aims at checking the wastage of water. The seven cities are Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Varanasi, Allahabad, Meerut and Mathura.

The minister

The forest department has flunked the test on operation tiger once again. The villagers behaving rowdily around the area where the tiger

Plants spell out air pollution in Varanasi researchers at Benaras Hindu University (bhu) have used plants to study the impact of air pollution at the genetic level, the first-time ever, in Varanasi. They placed a locally available plant, Tradescantia pallida, at four locations, of which three were highly polluted.