Criticised for not doing enough to tackle the spread of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, where hundreds of children die or are disabled every year, the Centre has now approved the setting up of dedicated wards in seven hospitals in the districts worst affected by the deadly infection.

Widespread rain across the state in the past few days, particularly in the last 48 hours, has come as a boon for paddy farmers, especially in the eastern Uttar Pradesh districts of Gorakhpur, Basti and Azamgarh which were facing a drought-like situation because of deficit of rainfall until last week.

Pioneer News Service | Lucknow

Amidst the inconsistency about the rain fall the state government is contemplating to declare few districts as the drought affected due to short fall of the rain than the normal one.The datas related with rain fall of the various districts are being collected and studied which may follow the official announcement in this regard shortly.

The state government had

Lucknow: The Centre-state spat over the quality of Japanese encephalitis vaccine may cost 3.7 crore eastern UP kids dear. On Monday, UP government called off the vaccination drive at the eleventh hour after the state health machinery developed cold feet over dubious quality of vaccine vial sent by the Centre.

The work of road construction at the National Highway, NH 28, near the Sitrampurmajha village in Basti district has been stopped to allow a stray tiger to move into Sohelwa forest via the Gonda reserve forest. The tiger had strayed from Ghazipur and had moved into Basti district and has been keeping the Forest department officials on their toes.