-The Times of India   Over 2500 tribals and forest dwellers from all over the UP will reach Delhi on December 15 to take part in rally organised to protest tardy implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 and harassment by forest officials and mafia. Tribals and forest workers from other parts of the country will also take part in the rally, which is being projected as one of the biggest...

-The Hindustan Times A 45-year-old cotton grower tried to end his life by consuming pesticide at the election meeting of the chief minister Prithviraj Chavan at Dhamangaon in Amravati district, some 200 kms from here in western part of Vidarbha, on Sunday. According to reports reaching here this evening, the incident occurred when the chief minister was addressing an election meeting for the ensuing municipality elections at Dhamangaon on Sunday afternoon.  The...

-The Times of India   The frustration of Vidarbha farmers was brought to the state government's notice in a bizarre incident on Sunday. A distressed farmer drank poison in front of the chief minister and thousands of agriculturists at a public meeting in Amravati district on Sunday. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was addressing a municipal poll campaign meeting in Dhamangaon Railway taluka of Amravati. Soon after he began his speech, farmer Arun Sabhane...

JANGU, 40, a Dalit labourer in Paraspur village in Gonda district, 120 km northeast of Lucknow, displays his job card in complete disbelief. “My job card was made three years ago and shows three payments. But I was never given any work, so how was the payment made?” he asks, puzzled. The first entry shows a payment of Rs 1,400 but he received a paltry Rs 100. He never went...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh admitted lapses of the past but spoke of a new beginning today in Saranda while unveiling an action plan for the forest region that was under the shadow of Maoist terror for over a decade. Armed with goodies like bicycles and transistor radios for residents of Chotanagra panchayat, about 120km from district headquarters of Chaibasa, Ramesh made it clear that the implementation of the development...