-TheWire.in With pending dues of Rs 22,000 crore, sugarcane farmers in the country continue to suffer as the Centre’s package to ‘address the current crisis’ proves thoroughly inadequate and MISdirected. The Wire takes a deep dive into the sugarcane crisis. Shamli: On a hot May afternoon, a long queue of tractor trolleys loaded beyond capacity with sugarcane, are lined up outside the Upper Doab Sugar Mills in Shamli district – in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The UN report that has sought an independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir is the first-ever by the United Nations Office of the High ComMISsioner for Human Rights on the state. It is titled "Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns...

-Scroll.in How does the project qualify as ‘public purpose’ and does it violate legal safeguards for Santhal areas? Part 2 of a Scroll.in investigation on the Godda plant. In the villages of Motiya and Gangta in Jharkhand’s Godda district, tractors and SUVs race down a recently widened dirt road. Even in the clouds of dust they kick off, it is hard to MISs the fence stretching across kilometres of farmland, with cows...

-Livemint.com If approved, Atal Pension Yojana will attract more people towards the scheme and provide better inflation-beating returns New Delhi: The Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) has proposed to double the monthly pension limit to Rs 10,000 from the existing Rs 5,000 under the Atal Pension Yojana. The proposal is now under the consideration of the central government. If approved, it will attract more people towards the scheme and provide better inflation-beating...

-Hindustan Times Contractual in nature, the lateral entry of experts should not alarm civil services unions. At the same time, it must be ensured that the policy is not MISused for political purposes. The government’s decision to recruit 10 senior bureaucrats through lateral entry is, in principle, a bold and long-overdue step. The Indian state apparatus suffers from three key deficiencies. Contrary to the widespread impression that it is bloated, the government...