-The Hindu A majority of men in Bogidari in Chirang district have worked at some point in Meghalaya’s coal mines BOGIDARI: Mohammad Hussain Sheikh recalls how a letter from the sirdar (manager and mine supervisor) of a Meghalaya coal mine in 2002 had helped him heave a big sigh of relief. It simply read: “You are hired. Come before the season starts in a few days.” Mr. Sheikh, now 48, was desperate...

-The Indian Express Villagers in Western UP have started herding strays to schools in Agra, Aligarh and Mathura. FROM A distance, it seemed as if they were trying to break into Parag Dairy near the Hathras-Mathura highway, repeatedly banging on its locked metal gate. Except, it was a group of desperate villagers from nearby Hardpur, trying to get rid of a truckload of stray cattle Wednesday afternoon. They shouted and argued but...

-The Hindu But shola forests have remained “relatively unchanged” Kochi: The new year heralds bad news for the high-altitude grasslands of the Western Ghats. Over four decades, the country lost almost one-fourth of these grasslands and exotic invasive trees are primarily to blame, find scientists. Though grassland afforestation using pine, acacia and eucalyptus ceased in 1996, the exotics still invade these ecosystems, confirms a study published on January 2 in the international...

-ThePrint.in Not BJP or Congress, farmers are setting their own agenda for 2019 elections. Has the farmers’ movement finally arrived at the centre stage of national politics in India? And, can 2019 be the first Lok Sabha election to be fought mainly on farmers’ issues? I asked myself these questions sitting at the stage of Kisan Mukti March at the Parliament Street last week. Tens of thousands of farmers from all over the...

-The Telegraph That Indian democracy would benefit from having more women in the legislature is demonstrated in a recent study In 1925, Sarojini Naidu became president of the Indian National Congress. Her candidature was promoted by Gandhi, who admired Naidu because she stood “for solid Hindu-Muslim unity”. Her election as head of her party was, as Gandhi put it, “the fittest opportunity for paying our Indian sisters the compliment that is long...