-The Indian Express Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government on Monday issued an ordinance to amend a law related to the ceiling on agricultural holdings, which will allow industrialists and private developers to easily purchase as much agricultural land as they want for non-agricultural activities. The Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 was notified a month after the special Assembly session concluded, and just two months before the monsoon session...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment During 2014 & 2015, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) received 29034 cases. Out of these, 7152 cases have been disposed off and 21882 cases are still pending as on 01.03.2015. The disposal of these cases depends on the nature and gravity of complaints and also on the response of public authorities who are entrusted with ensuring that the rights as guaranteed in...

-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...

-The Hans India The three-day camp sitting will look into a slew of complaints During its three-day camp sitting, the commission will also hold an ‘open hearing’ on April 22 on the problems and grievances of Scheduled Castes who have complaints of atrocities committed by public servants Hyderabad: The National Human Rights Commission will be holding its three-day camp at Hyderabad for the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from April 22 to...

-The Hindu The government has refused RTI requests for information on the decision-making process on amendments to Land Acquisition Bill. On January 17, Chitrangada Choudhury, a Fellow with the Open Society Institute, filed an RTI request with the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), seeking documents, file notings and correspondence between the MoRD and other authorities relating to any proposed amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the NDA’s December 2014 ordinance. Two...