-The Times of India MUMBAI: It's known as the land of politically powerful sugar barons and has long been the leading producer of sugarcane in the country. But this year, Maharashtra has turned out the highest sugar output ever in its 55-year history. By May, it's expecting an output of a record 103 lakh tons—34% more than in 2014. But the glut is not good news. Sugar prices have crashed by Rs...

-The Telegraph Lucknow: The Akhilesh Yadav government today suspended three revenue officers after some rain-hit farmers were handed compensation cheques of Rs 75 and Rs 100, and ordered a probe into how such a pittance was paid. News channels showed the farmers in Faizabad and Badaun districts of Uttar Pradesh waving cheques of Rs 100, Rs 75 and even Rs 69. These farmers had lost their crops in last month's unseasonal rain...

-Maintream Weekly In order to reduce and remove the many-sided disadvantages and problems faced by Dalits and adivasis, sub-plans for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been introduced to ensure adequate and justice-based availability of funds for these communities. Summarising the basic idea and rationale for this, the Planning Commission says: “the persistence of socio-economic backwardness of the SCs and STs in spite of the development efforts had warranted a special...

-The Times of India Despite more access to education, better household amenities and increased incomes, the economic gap between upper castes and dalit and tribal communities continues unchanged over the years, according to latest economic data from the NSSO. A comparison of average monthly expenditure of households belonging to dalit communities with upper caste households showed that in rural areas there was a gap of about 38% in 1999-2000 which changed only...

-The Times of India As successive spells of freak rains in March-April ravaged fields across Uttar Pradesh, a spate of farmer deaths were reported. Most of these were ascribed to suicide or trauma, as crop losses mounted and the state appeared to be reeling under a fresh agrarian crisis. The UP government moved to provide relief, but on farmer deaths, it saw things a little differently. "There is no conclusive proof, yet,...