Ten bonded labourers from Orissa, including three women, were rescued from a hollow block unit in Tiruneermalai near Tambaram on Monday. Staff from the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Tambaram, rescued them with the help of two non-governmental organisations with police protection on Monday morning. They were brought to Tambaram and handed certificates identifying them as “victims of forced labour” that entitled them to government rehabilitation funds. They were also...

Eleven women sarpanchs figure in the list of the 48 accused in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) fund scam in Gujarat’s Dahod taluka. Authorities, however, pointed out that the real culprits could be their husbands running the show by proxy on these reserved seats. Fatehsinh Pargi, a resident of Moti Shehra village in Fatehpura taluka, who brought the issue of non-payment of wages and manipulation of job...

As India was celebrating 63 years of Independence, the village of Tappal around 80 kilometers from Aligarh resembled a battleground - the epicentre of violence between farmers and the police since Saturday. There were protests in Mathura as well. Hundreds of farmers were demanding higher compensation for their land that has been acquired for the Yamuna expressway, a 165-km road corridor between Noida and Agra. The agitation turned violent after police allegedly...

Farmers in Aligarh and Mathura districts of Uttar Pradesh went on a rampage, blocking roads and setting vehicles ablaze on Sunday after two persons were killed in police firing on Saturday. They were staging a demonstration to demand higher compensation for land acquired by the state government to build the Agra-Yamuna Expressway. A police official was also killed in the violence on Saturday. "Nearly half-a-dozen people were injured in clash with the...

Trouble erupted at Jikarpur, near Aligarh, on Saturday night after rumours spread that a farmer leader had been arrested near the village. police opened fire to disperse the violent protesters and bring the situation under control, said SSP (Aligarh) Vijay Prakash, who was transferred on Sunday. B.D. Palson, SSP of Mathura, which too was hit by the violence, was also shifted. Two persons and a PAC jawan were killed and nine injured in...