POLA IS THE HARVEST FESTI-val in Maharashtra. On this day every August, farmers in the agricultural belts of the state bathe their buffaloes, paint their horns and parade them around their villages. As the villagers of Bhadumri (in western Vidarbha) were busy sprucing up their cattle in August 2006, 35-year-old Anil Shende, a marginal farmer, staggered out of his two-room mud hut and collapsed.

Maharashtra became the first state in the country today to approve a regulator for the housing sector which would have sweeping powers, including the authority to fix prices of houses, in a bid to control the sector. The Maharashtra Housing Sector Regulatory Commission Act 2008, when passed by the state Assembly, will give the regulator powers of a civil court to settle disputes, regulate builders and have a separate budget to function independently, besides allowing it to set prices of flats built for the poor and middle classes by government agencies and private builders.

Microcredit Raises Hopes For India's Farm Widows INDIA: April 3, 2008 SUNNA, India - Savita Jiddewar is a rare success story on the cotton fields of central India, the epicentre of an agrarian crisis that has seen 150,000 farmers commit suicide since 1997 because they could not pay back loans. Her home stands out strikingly in this small village of dirt lanes and pale blue brick houses. She has a television set, a DVD player and a comfortable sofa. A mobile phone rings intermittently and the aroma of cooking wafts from the kitchen.

Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi says in an article that the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver announced by the UPA government recently may benefit some people but it has left out a large mass of poor people. Besides, there are many other discrepancies in the waiver scheme, he says.

The Maharashtra forest department isn't yet sure about whether it will be able to hold the new line

Days after the Fiat-Tata joint venture announced an investment of more than Rs 2,300 crore in the Ranjangaon plant in Maharashtra, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have separately committed to inve