-Livemint.com Farmers continue to be vulnerable to frequent episodes of losses that neither the state nor the markets have been able to mitigate The dramatic long march to Mumbai involving thousands of distressed farmers on 12 March is a remarkable feat of peaceful protest against the state, given its apathy towards farmers’ distress as well as its failures in safeguarding tribal land Rights. However, what is surprisingly missing in this poignant narrative...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The concern over the silence of the Prime Minister on the dilution of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has spread beyond Dalit MPs in the NDA. Junior human resource development minister and BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the government should immediately move the Supreme Court against the order that prevents immediate arrest over complaints of...

-The Hindu Why India is the only Bt cotton-growing country facing the problem of pink bollworm infestation Earlier this month, the government cut royalties that local seed companies pay to Monsanto, for the second time in two years. This follows previous attempts to defang Monsanto. In February, for instance, the anti-trust regulator, the Competition Commission of India, decided to probe into anti-competitive practices by Monsanto. At the centre of all this is...

-Scroll.in The existing policy bans commercial activity in natural forests to protect forest dwellers. The new draft policy is up for public comments till April 14. The Union government has drafted a new National Forest Policy. If approved, the policy will allow the corporate sector to grow, harvest and sell trees on government-owned forest lands. So far, this is explicitly banned under the existing National Forest Policy, which was laid down...

-The Indian Express Latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows reported crimes against SCs increased by 5.5 per cent in 2016 while crimes against STs has increased by 4.7 per cent. At a time when cases of atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis have increased despite low conviction rates, Rights groups said Tuesday’s Supreme Court order would reverse many gains made after amen-ding the Atrocities Act in 2015. The Supreme Court order, many...