-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...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Raising the spectre of a second successive year of deficient rains, the India Meteorological Department has predicted below normal rainfall for the upcoming monsoon season with a 33% probability of rains being less than 90%, commonly referred to as a drought. "The monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 93% of the long-period average with a model error of plus or minus 5%," said Union earth...

-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...

-Hindustan Times Hamirpur/ Jalaun/ Banda: The dangerous sand mafia stops at nothing. It kills, runs over men in uniform, kidnaps and, in Uttar Pradesh, even molests and rapes. Its impunity stems from the fact, as an HT investigation found, that complaints lodged with police often remain confined to files. Shivpal Singh, gram pradhan of Bansariya village, testifies to the mafia’s dominance. “In March 2014, the musclemen of a kingpin sexually assaulted two women...

-Business Standard Says company failed to start construction in stipulated 6 months; company blames state for delay in approvals Chennai: Beverage company Coca-Cola has decided to withdraw its Rs 500-crore investment in Tamil Nadu and has asked the state government to refund money already pumped into the project. The development comes 31 days before the Tamil Nadu Global Investors’ Meet. A state government official said it was decided to cancel the land allotted to...