-Rediff.com As people in drought-hit parts of Maharashtra face livelihood challenges, concerns have been raised over the possibility of girls from these areas being allegedly trafficked to Goa for flesh trade, according to a prominent NGO in Panaji. Past experiences have shown how girls and women were trafficked and pushed into sex trade, when calamities like natural disaster or conflicts happen, leaving people helpless, NGO ARZ (Anyay Rahit Zindagi) director Arun Pandey...

-Reuters Millions of people in Maharashtra are at serious risk of hunger after two years of low rainfall, coupled with poor management of water resources, have left dams empty, farmland parched and cattle emaciated, aid agencies warned on Thursday. Maharashtra -- one of the country's biggest producers of sugar, pulses, cotton and soybeans -- is reeling from the worst drought in more than four decades after receiving less than 50 percent of...

-The Telegraph Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has started reaching out to leaders ahead of an all-party meeting next week to decide the final shape of the land acquiSITion bill. Ramesh today met the BJP's Arun Jaitley, the Rajya Sabha leader of OppoSITion, and the CPM's SITaram Yechury to convince them about the provisions of the Land AcquiSITion, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (LARR) Bill, which seeks to replace the Land AcquiSITion Act, 1894. Talks...

The ongoing droughts and water crises in Maharashtra and Gujarat point to the multiple conflicts the beleaguered and scarce resource of water is likely to spark in the coming years. India is today the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, but it is clear that how we extract, harvest, distribute and manage our most precious resource cannot proceed along usual lines. The unsustainable over-extraction is heralding a fall in the water-table and...

-The Hindu First it was sexual harassment at workplace. Next comes the slanderous campaign on the Internet. For this former employee of auditing firm KPMG, life has become hell since 2007. Now Aditi (name changed) is fighting with the Mumbai cyber police who are doing little on her 2012 complaint seeking action against webSITes which hosted offensive comments against her. Trial yet to begin While the sexual harassment case led to the...