The government has launched a relief package, which will directly address the problems of the coffee growers, especially the small growers. Commerce and industry minister today flagged off the implementation of the `Coffee Debt Relief Package, 2010' by distributing the first batch of certificates to those small coffee growers whose loans have been waived under this package. This is the first time that the Government of India has come forward with...

A Right to Information (RTI) application filed by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal seeking details to make public the assets and liabilities owned by ministers has thrown up interesting results. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), moving away from its earlier stand of not making public ministers' assets and liabilities, on Thursday gave over 400 pages of complete details filed by Members of Parliament. According to the RTI report, Minister of State for...

As dusk falls, the sound of children singing fills the air at the SOS Tibetan Children’s Village in Bylakuppe, five hours’ drive from Bangalore in southern India. Night descends on the tidy, stone-paved school campus carved out of the lush jungle. But darkness is dispelled when 20 solar-powered street lights on the campus begin to glow with a steady white light. Thirty dormitories set among groves of coconut palm trees are...

Even though the West Bengal government is yet to confirm that suicides by farmers in the Ausgram block of Bardhaman district are drought-related, following the third incident on Wednesday, district authorities admitted on Thursday that the farmers were “under a stress of debt burden.” “It is not possible to be sure whether the suicides are drought-related or not, but it is clear that the economic condition of the farmers was not...

Demanding adequate compensation to the family of a debt-ridden farmer who allegedly committed suicide, irate farmers in Orissa''s Kendrapara district today detained a senior government officer for three hours, police said. The incident took place at Andara village when Pattamundai tehsildar Pabitra Mohan Pradhan went there to investigate the alleged debt-induced suicidal death, they said. Locals squatted on the road leading to the village and put the tehsildar under detention for nearly...