-The Hindustan Times The Punjab government on Wednesday hammered out a compromise in a village between upper caste landlords and Dalit labourers who endured a month-long social boycott and loss of work for demanding “just” wages. But the truce — on paper — at Maha Singh Wala village in southern Punjab’s Sangrur district, 142 km from Chandigarh, appeared unsteady to Dalits as well as the landlords who had enforced the social...

-The Times of India PANAJI: In a recent significant judgment, the Supreme Court has held that the state's panchayats have the right to challenge government authority decisions before the high court, as the grassroots-level bodies represent the will of the people. The apex court verdict thus overruled the high court of Bombay at Goa's judgment which had declined relief to the Calangute panchayat. The panchayat had questioned before the high court an order...

-The Hindu For the first time in five days since the controversy over a class V student of Patha Bhavan in Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, being forced to drink her urine as punishment for bed wetting erupted, the authorities have expressed their regret over the incident on Thursday. Stating that the university “unequivocally regrets the traumatic experience” of the student “at the hands of the Warden,” a press release issued by the...

-The Telegraph Shillong: Two teams of National Disaster Response Force personnel were rushed to Meghalaya’s South Garo Hills district today to help rescue possible survivors among the 15 labourers trapped inside a coal mine since last week. The Guwahati-based personnel reached Nengkol in the Rongsa Awe area of Nangalbibra region — from where it is 10km to the coal mines — late this evening. Baghmara, the district headquarters, is around 480km from...

-The Telegraph Nengkol (South Garo Hills): Twelve-year old Persus S. Marak was at home baby-sitting his three-year old brother when he heard an uproar from below, where the coal quarry was in operation. “I ran down and found one elderly man being brought up in the box...he seemed to be injured, but after that no one was brought out,” Marak told The Telegraph this afternoon, making a cup of tea for himself...