-PTI   The suicide of a farmer in Vidarbha's Yavatmal district has put the Maharashtra government in a spot, as in his suicide note, he asked people not to vote forCongress and NCP, the ruling alliance partners in the state, as they don't "care" for farmers.  "Don't vote for the Congress and NCP; they don't care for farmers," 45-year-old Gajanan Ghotekar wrote in the suicide note before consuming pesticide last week at village...

-Reuters   PERLE: As a shiny red harvester bounces across the black earth into the first row of sugar cane, excited schoolchildren run after it and several dozen men stand gaping in the wake of its swift progress. It's the first time that Perle, a village on the banks of the Krishna river in Maharashtra state, has seen a machine used for cutting the tough cane. "This machine will harvest my entire field today,"...

The government is planning to tighten the rules for issuing and renewing driving licences to make the process “fudge proof” after a study showed drivers’ fault accounted for most road accidents in the country. A committee of state transport commissioners and officials from the National Informatics Centre recently came up with suggestions on possible amendments to the rules. The panel, headed by Andhra Pradesh transport commissioner Hiralal Samariya, has submitted its report...

BANWARA, India – In the fall of 2006, Gita Devi was pregnant with her sixth child when her family fell on hard times. A severe drought made it more difficult than ever to find farm work here in India’s northeastern plains. The family couldn’t afford food. It was unable to get a government ration card to buy grains and rice at steep discounts, even though it clearly was poor enough to...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan today ordered a CBI investigation into last week’s murder of IPS officer Narendra Kumar, allegedly by mining mafia. Chauhan said he was responding to an appeal by Madhurani, the slain officer’s widow who is an IAS officer in the state, and not clamours from the Congress. The Opposition party has been demanding a probe by the agency and called a bandh today to protest the...