Most farmers are worrying over the sudden shortage of water supply to the paddy crop which is currently being grown over 10 lakh acres in the Godavari districts, which accounts for the bulk of the rice procured in the state by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Some farmers even staged a protest against water scarcity in West Godavari on Sunday. Farmers’ leaders alleged that shortage of water mostly affected...

We are delivering relief materials, claim Maoists A local newspaper has claimed that six Adivasis died of starvation at Morpalli village in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, where the security forces allegedly burnt 34 homes and granaries, sexually assaulted two women and killed one man on March 11. Last week, The Hindu reported the allegations that the security forces had torched about 300 homes and granaries, sexually assaulted three women and killed at least...

The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), the government's main advisory body on pricing policy for farm produce, has favoured a subsidy mechanism to encourage use of hybrid rice varieties. The commission's views are likely to be a part of the recommendations it plans to send to the government on pricing of farm produce. "China has gone ahead in hybrid rice and around 63 per cent of its total area is...

One officer allegedly beat him with rifle butt, accusing him of sending food to Maoists Two days after The Hindu reported that security forces burnt down close to 300 homes and granaries in three villages of Chhattisgarh's violence-wracked Dantewada district, Special Police Officers (SPOs) assaulted a truck owner for delivering emergency rations to these villages. According to eyewitness reports, Koya commandos (tribal police corps), during a five-day anti-Maoist offensive from March 11...

Eighty labourers, both men and women, are at work at Thiruvanduthurai village in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, about 325 km south of Chennai. They are digging a pond - about an acre wide and six feet deep - funded under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or MGNREGS. Outside the work perimeter, two middle aged men look on, worried. P. Murugan and K. Govindaraj are farmers from the...