Bombay High Court today noted the rise in murderous attacks on social activists and asked the state police chief to report within a week what the government was doing to protect them. Yesterday, Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty, 38, was stabbed to death by two attackers close to his home at Talegaon Dabhade near Pune, where he had exposed a series of land scams. Last week, two gunmen had fired...

Tens of thousands of displaced people around the world will get micro-loans to set up their own businesses and become self-sufficient thanks to a new agreement between the UN refugee agency and a microfinance services organization set up by Bangladeshi Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus. Under a memorandum of understanding signed by Mr. Yunus and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres, the Grameen Trust will set up micro-loan...

Dibrugarh: Over a hundred birds died of suspected pesticide poisoning in a tea estate at Moran in Dibrugarh today. Forest officials said samples of the dead birds would be sent to the forensic laboratory for tests to ascertain the cause. Today’s deaths at Tiloijan tea estate comes close on the heels of migratory birds dying inside Kaziranga National Park on Thursday. Tea workers and people living in and around the...

The central government has decided to make each of its 6,000 websites disabled-friendly. Under new government guidelines, the visually challenged will be able to use a “screen reader software” that will read out the text that appears on a computer monitor. People who have difficulty handling a mouse can use the “voice recognition software” to work the computer with verbal commands. The websites will provide features like “iconic learning” for those...

A committee appointed by the Union Government has found fault with the entire process of land reforms, particularly the dubious role of officialdom, and called for revisiting the land ceiling LIMits and that too with retrospective effect. The Committee on State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms, set up subsequent to the constitution of the National Council for Land Reforms under the Prime Minister, has underlined the relevance...