-The Indian Express Booming Indian antelope populations threaten crops in many areas. Farmers are reluctant to strike against them, so the herds have only feral packs to fear. A couple of centuries ago, some four million blackbuck roamed the Indian landmass south of the Himalayas from undivided “Punjab to Nepal and probably in most pARTs of the Peninsula where the country is wooded and hilly, but not in dense jungle”. At...

-Hindkisan.com Alarmingly, despite wages paid under MGNREGA being much lower than the standard minimum wage in most states, increasing number of people from rural households are applying for jobs under the employment scheme. This trend is an indicator of the mounting distress in the rural economy which is aggravated by paucity of jobs. Mocking the economic condition of the distressed rural working community, the Union Government has decided to uphold the low...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A finance company cannot forcibly take possession of a vehicle for non-payment of dues without sending a notice to the borrower, country's apex consumer commission has said.   The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCRDC) on Friday ordered a private finance company to pay Rs 80,000 to the borrower whose tractor was seized by the company in January, 2011 for alleged non-payment of dues. Directing Shriram Transport Finance...

-The Indian Express Of 700-odd districts, merely 194 have the recommended exclusive courts for SC/ST Act cases. The Sunday Express travels to two such courts — one in Ahmedabad, set up after Una, and the other in Banda, a district with a high number of cases — to find a familiar story Over 1.44 lakh cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and 23,408 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes came for trial...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad University linguist discovers Walmiki and Malhar, spoken by small communities in Odisha. Hyderabad: A linguist from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has stumbled on two languages called Walmiki and Malhar both predominantly in the remote region’s of Odisha. The languages are categorised `endangered’ as the number of people speaking is small. For instance Malhar is spoken by just 75 including children from a pARTicular community. These people live...