Four deadly cobras among 40 snakes unleashed by farmers in latest anti-corruption protest in northern India Two farmers fed up with bribery demands have dumped three sacks filled with snakes on the floor of a busy tax office in northern India. The 40 or so snakes of different sizes and species, including at least four deadly cobras, sent clerks and villagers climbing on to tables and scurrying out of the door to...

At a time when the government is willing to pump thousands of crores for the revival of national carrier Air India, the finance ministry has rejected railways' plea for a temporary loan of Rs 2,101 crore to fund its development works.  Turning down the loan request, the ministry has the asked state-run transporter, which is under acute financial stress, to meet its liabilities by raising resources.  Railways made the demand considering negative...

We have five million children in the labour market, say official figures. Their actual numbers may be four times as many. As a nation, we have failed each one of them…   Millions of our children still labour today, in factories, farms, kilns, mines, homes and city waste dumps, when they should be in school or in a playground. We profoundly fail these children, collectively depriving them of education, play, rest, healthy...

The state government has finally decided to compensate cotton growing farmers on the basis of their land holding rather than on the crop sold. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday said it was not possible to compensate farmers on a per quintal basis — a demand by a few Opposition parties — because many farmers had already sold their cotton. However, Chavan said the state government had not yet decided on the...

After the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter of 2005 — which the State CID (Crime) had found to be “fake” — and the Central Bureau of Investigation concluding that the killing of Sohrabuddin's accomplice, Tulsiram Prajapati, a year later was also a fake encounter, the Ishrat Jahan murder case will add further embarrassment to the Narendra Modi government in the State. For the moment, the key issue is who will investigate the murder...