Missing children cannot be reduced to numbers — every statistic represents a child, a family, and a future at risk. The recently released National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2024 report should serve as a national wake-up call – one that disturbs every citizen, policymaker and institution in India. Behind the statistics lies a far graver reality: thousands of children disappearing from homes, schools, streets and communities, often into situations of trafficking, exploitation

From debt traps and failed irrigation to climate shocks and political neglect, the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha reveals the deep structural failures haunting India’s farming economy. Every monsoon, as clouds gather over the dry plains of eastern Maharashtra, famers in the Vidarbha region look up with a mix of hope and despair. They are hopeful, as rain means life for their crops. Fear because, rain or no rain, the debts remain, prices fall, and the future remains uncertain. Vi

For two decades, India’s obsession with engineering and medicine has created not merely competition, but a generation burdened by fear, exhaustion, and borrowed dreams. AI generated image Roughly two decades ago, a new dream took hold across Maharashtra. Two words began to dominate the aspirations of countless households: “doctor” and “engineer.” Success came to be defined so narrowly that all other careers appeared secondary, even meaningless. From farmers in villages to mid

From unpaid menstrual leave to clandestine hysterectomies, Beed district exposes the hidden violence of informal labour. Sugar is not as sweet as you think, especially if it is coming from Beed District in Maharashtra where hundreds of women workers in their reproductive age are not allowed paid menstrual leave. That is not the only inhuman practice invested in women. Based on 2026 reports, Beed district in Maharashtra is considered a major hub for sugarcane labour, sending a

Mumbai: Maharashtra has embarked on a highly ambitious journey to establish itself as the premier nuclear energy hub of the nation, driven by the escalating power demands of next-generation industries. As the global push for artificial intelligence, massive data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, green hydrogen production, and advanced electric mobility accelerates, the need for stable, uninterrupted, and clean base-load electricity has become paramount. The Maharashtra go

The state’s electric vehicle boom promises cleaner cities and industrial renewal, but the transition is exposing the deep social and energy vulnerabilities of India’s urban future. India’s electric vehicle revolution is picking up pace, and Maharashtra is one of the most ambitious drivers. The state is emerging as a leader in clean mobility with Mumbai’s growing fleet of electric buses and Pune’s booming EV startup ecosystem. Government incentives, rising petrol prices, envir

Latur, long celebrated as one of Maharashtra’s most prominent educational hubs, has found itself at the centre of controversy following discussions surrounding alleged irregularities and paper leak claims linked to the NEET examination. While investigations into the matter are still underway and no conclusive evidence directly connecting Latur to any organised paper leak has officially emerged so far, the city’s name has repeatedly surfaced in media discussions and social med

The rape and murder of a four-year-old girl has left Maharashtra grieving and demanding accountability from a system that failed to stop a known offender. She was only four years old. She was spending her summer holidays at her grandmother’s house in Nasrapur, a quiet village in the Bhor area of Pune district. She liked playing outside. On the afternoon of May 1, 2026, a 65-year-old man from the same village walked up to her and said he would show her a calf. She smiled and f

The Union Cabinet’s decision to raise the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for sugarcane for the 2026–27 season to Rs. 365 per quintal, based on a 10.25 percent recovery rate, represents a deliberate strengthening of rural incomes and sectoral stability Aimed at benefiting nearly five crore farmers, it will be a major bounty for farmers in Maharashtra’s sugar-rich western belt. The increase of 2.81 percent over the previous season ensures that cane remains one of the few cro

The rape and murder of a four-year-old child is not merely a crime but the collapse of the most basic covenant that binds a society together. When such brutality is inflicted upon someone so young, so defenceless, the usual language of law and order feels woefully inadequate. The shocking rape and murder of a four-year-old Pune has rattled Maharashtra. Such was the grief and anger that hundreds of protestors blocked the Mumbai–Bengaluru highway for hours. The child’s body, pl

On occasion of its diamond jubilee, the Marathi Vidnyan Parishad is adapting its mission of vernacular science outreach to a more digital age without losing sight of its founding ideals. The Marathi Vidnyan Parishad (MVP), Mumbai, one of India’s most respected science communication movements, recently completed 60 years of its inspiring journey. Over the past six decades, the Parishad has played a pioneering role in promoting scientific temper, disseminating scientific knowle

While the state’s Vidarbha region is accustomed to weather extremes, the current heatwave has crossed the line from intense discomfort into danger. In Akola, the mercury has surged to a searing 46.9°C - the highest recorded in the country - while Amravati, Wardha and Yavatmal districts have hovered perilously close behind. Nagpur, the region’s largest city, has been left sweltering above 45°C. This is a glimpse of a harsher normal. Meteorologists point to an anticyclonic circ

Maharashtra is wilting under the onslaught of successive heat waves. What was once dismissed as the predictable discomfort of an Indian summer has taken on a harsher character this summer. Cities like Pune, long celebrated for their temperate climate and breezy evenings, are now enduring heat conditions more reminiscent of the parched interiors of Vidarbha than the gentler Deccan plateau. Across districts, thermometers have climbed to unfamiliar highs while more tellingly, th

With Ashwini Bhide helming the BMC, women in Maharashtra are no longer merely breaking bureaucratic ceilings but redesigning the building itself. India has a powerful legacy of women power in the political and administrative field, and when the power is in the administrative government, the power game is different. Take Kiran Bedi, who became India’s first woman to join the Indian Police Service in 1972, was known for her fearless approach and innovative policing techniques,

Maharashtra’s decision to keep ready reckoner (RR) rates unchanged for 2026–27 is a rare moment of restraint in a property market accustomed to incremental inflation. The move, justified by the government on grounds of the ongoing US–Iran conflict and a visible cooling in parts of the real estate sector, offers immediate, if modest, relief. In cities like Mumbai, where even marginal policy shifts can swell transaction costs, the freeze is sensible. But it is not sufficient. I

As the Centre expands PG medical seats, Maharashtra is losing both seats and standards—amid faculty shortages and allegations of corruption in contractual appointments. Even as the Union government expands PG medical seats nationwide, Maharashtra is losing ground due to a chronic faculty shortage in government medical colleges. At Rajarshi Shahu Government Medical College, vacancies across seven departments have already cost 23 PG seats, with the total likely to rise to 40 as

In India’s farm policy, arithmetic often collides with reality. Nowhere is this more evident than in Maharashtra, where the official logic of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) struggles to keep pace with the lived economics of cultivation. As the 2025–26 agricultural season unfolds, fresh evidence from the state’s Agricultural Price Commission suggests that the gap between what farmers spend and what they earn is widening. At first glance, Maharashtra appears an agricultural power

Renaming hostels may soothe stigma, but it does little to fix the conditions that define students’ lives AI generated image Pune: Recently, the Social Justice and Special Assistance Department decided to excise the term ‘Backward Class’ from the names of its government hostels and rechristen them after revered historical figures. While the move to replace them with names that evoke dignity and achievement is, on the face of it, a step towards psychological emancipation, it is