-IPS News BELLARY, India: HuligeAmma, a Dalit woman in her mid-forties, bends over a sewing machine, carefully running the needle over the hem of a shirt. Sitting nearby is Roopa, her 22-year-old daughter, who reads an amusing message on her cell phone and laughs heartily. The pair leads a simple yet contented life – they subsist on half a dollar a day, stitch their own clothes and participate in schemes to educate...

-DNA Tirunelveli (TN): Faced with a series of agitations, police on Wednesday arrested eight Teachers for allegedly forcing Dalit students to clean toilets in a government-aided high school at a village in the district. Backed by some political outfits, local Dalits have been staging a series of agitations in the past weeks demanding action against the Teachers alleging that they were forcing the students of the school in Keelapathai Pandithankurichi near Kalakkad....

-Hindustan Times Fatehgarh Sahib: The burning of crops by farmers was causing loss to nutrients worth Rs 350 crore in the state alone besides causing environmental pollution and damaging biodiversity, said Dr AK Dhawan, director of Central Soil and Materials Research Station. Dhawan was here as a part of the zonal monitoring committee of the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad that visited Badhouchhi Kalan village in the district to...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The Assam Agricultural University is fighting for a geographical indications (GI) tag for a local variety of rice - joha - claiming it has better aroma than the famed Basmati. "The joha class of rice is unique in aroma and grain characteristics and distinct from other aromatic rice like Basmati in biochemical and other quality attributes. The uniqueness of this rice is mainly attributed to particular climatic conditions prevalent...

-The Telegraph   Tribal ministry to cover 6 lakh children of indigenous communities in Assam     Guwahati: The Union tribal affairs ministry, with the help of the health department, is planning to cover at least six lakh tribal children in Assam, including those of Tea garden workers, under its sickle-cell anaemia screening programme this year. Sickle-cell anaemia is a blood disorder characterised by an abnormality in haemoglobin that carries oxygen from the lungs to...