-The Indian Express As incidents of violence against Dalits mount in Gujarat, it is worth recalling the India of Ambedkar’s dreams The steps, if any, initiated by the government through a special session of the Lok Sabha on atrocities after the Una incident last year, have not had an impact on the violence against Dalits in Gujarat. On the contrary, there has been an increase of incidents which the Supreme Court had...

-Down to Earth NHRC has sent notices to Centre and Maharashtra, demanding detailed report in four weeks The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports on how several farmers in Maharashtra’s  Yavatmal district had to be hospitalised during the last three months due to an infection caused by spraying of a pesticide on the cotton crops. Many have reportedly died and condition of several other...

-NDTV Over 600 farmers have been affected by pesticide inhalation in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region. They skipped wearing protective gear while spraying pesticide, officials claimed Mumbai: Twenty nine-year-old Inder Rathod, who works on cottons fields in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, had sprayed pesticide on the crop last week. That was the last time he saw the lush fields and fluffy cotton crop. "After the spray, I couldn't see anything. It was so sudden,"...

-The Indian Express The Agriculture Department has meanwhile rushed two ‘Quality Control’ probe teams to Yavatmal and Akola to check if some of the pesticides were spurious. Yavatmal (Maharashra): Devidas Madavi, 57, a farm hand from Kalamb town in Yavatmal district, took up the job of spraying pesticides for the first time this year. By August 19, 12 days after he had used a can to spray pesticides in the cotton fields...

-IANS Referring to the debate on security of Aadhaar data, Prasad said the biometric information -- which includes iris scan and fingerprints -- is stored in an encrypted form and is very secure. In a bid to check the menace of multiple driving licences being issued to individuals, the central government will soon introduce linking of Aadhaar with driving licences, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Friday. The Minister for Electronics and...