-The Indian Express The Dalit villagers alleged that the attacks followed an order by the pradhan, Pramod Rana, at a panchayat in the Gujjar-dominated village. Baghpat: FORTY-EIGHT hours after members of the Gujjar community attacked two Dalit teenagers of Kamala village in Baghpat, about a third of its Dalit homes stood deserted. All the young women had been sent away “as precaution”. Akash Khondwal, 19, a BA student, is on ventilator support...

-The Hindu Paddy and sugarcane are India’s most water-guzzling crops — using up over half of the country’s total irrigation water resources — but procurement policies and water and power subsidies are skewing profitability and distorting crop decisions, says a recent study done by agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, and Gayathri Mohan. It has been published as a working paper by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). The ICRIER...

-The Hindu The problem with the SC/ST Act is the failure of the criminal justice system to recognise its own casteist biases For India’s Dalits and Adivasis, May 1 this year was a ‘May Day’ in more ways than one. It was May Day, the day to commemorate the labour movement (the vast majority of them do belong to the working classes), and also ‘mayday’ in the maritime sense, an occasion to...

-The New Indian Express At Rs. 80 per crate of 15kg, tomato is threatening to bring tears in the eyes in this poll season for the farmers in this drought prone district. KOLAR: Waiting for his truck load of tomatoes unloaded at the Kolar Agricutlure Produce Market Committee(APMC) yard, one of the largest in Asia, is worried despite harvesting a bumper crop. As the price for the day is announced disappointment is...

-IANS New Delhi: Press freedom in India has deteriorated in 2018 and three journalists have been killed in the first four months, media watchdog The Hoot said, stating that "journalists continue to be vulnerable". The number of killings documented by the Hoot report for the first four months was the same as in the whole of 2017. "They were killed in connection with their reporting, judging by what initial investigations show," it said. India...