-Livemint.com Together with large stocks of sugar and higher planting of sugar cane, the surplus situation in Indian agriculture is set to worsen, fuelling another round of farmer protests as states like Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan goes to polls Pune/ New Delhi: Karan Ramdas Atole’s dairy farm is a neat brown square of cleared ground surrounded by lush green sugarcane fields. A mechanical engineer by training, 25-year-old Atole took a loan...

-The Tribune Assam is tense; internet services have been suspended and security forces on standby with the final draft list of the controversial NRC out. Sanjoy Hazarika, a specialist on the north-east, explains why it is sitting on a powder keg I’M not getting into the numbers game for Assam and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process which is a draft in progress. The first draft, published last December had 19...

-The Indian Express In a chapter titled “Grave Concerns”, the report, seen by The Sunday Express, lists specific complaints by inmates. Here are excerpts from the report. Muzaffarpur/ Patna: Citing sexual exploitation at six short stay homes, physical abuse at 14 shelters, bathrooms with no latches, and inmates being “always locked up”, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), in its report to the Bihar Government, said abuse is “prevalent in almost...

-The Hindu The Araku valley saw its first childbirth in a hospital, thanks to young nurses drawn from the tribes themselves On an ordinary workday, 27-year-old Pramila Bariki hikes up steep slopes, across fields, through ankle-deep rivulets, often walking up to 14 km. She gets a ride until the road is motorable, from which point she has to walk. Her job? She doles out healthcare advice to mothers and children in the remotest...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Forced to defer introduction of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2018, in the face of stiff opposition in Parliament and outside, the Narendra Modi Government appears to have brought it into effect without parliamentary approval through an advertisement. On July 26, the department of personnel, public grievances & pensions issued an advertisement for appointment of information commissioners in the Central Information Commission (CIC) that said the "salary,...