-NDTV Sangli, Maharashtra: Sugarcane farmers in Maharashtra, who have been protesting since last week to demand better prices for their produce, will meet today to decide on how they want to continue their agitation. Yesterday, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan met the farmers and appealed to them to call off their protests. The Chief Minister reportedly also urged the farmers not to resort to violence and told them that the prices of sugarcane...

-The Times of India PUNE: The Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) continued its agitation for a higher price for sugarcane crop for the second consecutive day in western Maharashtra. The protesters resorted to stone pelting and roadblocks and brought state transport to a halt in he region. While chief minister Prithviraj Chavan held inconclusive discussions with Raghunath Patil, the leader of Shetkari Sanghatana, another farmers' organisation, SSS president and Hatkanangle MP Raju Shetty...

-The Times of India PUNE: Two farmers were killed, one of them in police firing, while three policemen were injured and an unspecified number of vehicles were either damaged or burnt after an agitation by sugarcane farmers for higher prices for their crop turned violent in western Maharashtra on Monday. Chandrakant Nalawade, a small farmer from Vasagade village in Sangli, was killed when police opened fire to control the agitating farmers after...

-The Telegraph In the desert-like barrenness of brown around him, Suresh Mangsuli is growing grapes. As the rest of his drought-hit village thirsts for drinking water, he splashes his three acres of vines with over 10,000 litres a day. His huge farm pond is brimming, insured against seepage by a black polythene sheet stretched across its floor. Its water is pumped out to irrigate the vineyard through a network of drip pipes. Growing grapes...

SANGLI/ SATARA: Open trailers packed with families and cattle have become a common sight along Maharashtra's highways - a telling sign of the distress the drought in 15 districts of the state has brought with it. Truckloads of villagers are migrating from the hinterland to cities like Mumbai, Pune and Kolhapur in desperate search for livelihood. While many officials deny the drought-driven migration, the absence of male heads in rural homes...