In a dark anteroom of the Presidency University canteen here, a handful of students huddled around a screen on Wednesday watching Jashn-e-Azadi , Sanjay Kak's 2007 documentary on Kashmir that was not allowed to be screened at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune earlier this week.  While the walls of the canteen are littered with graffiti — political and otherwise — not a single poster was put up...

-The Hindu   Legislative proceedings are usually far from stimulating and we have grown accustomed to MPs and MLAs stealing a surreptitious nap or even snoring defiantly to escape the tedium of debate. But the three Karnataka BJP ministers who were forced to resign Wednesday morning chose a most unusual way to escape what they regarded as an arid discussion on the drought situation in the State. Much to the embarrassment of...

On September 18, Bimola Rai’s world was reduced to rubble. A student of Class III in Bop village in Chungthang block of North District in Sikkim, a Himalayan border state, she was left traumatized when a devastating earthquake of 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale, flattened her home and school building, located at an altitude of 5,500 feet. Today, Bimola joins 26 other children of her village to walk the four...

Public hearing throws light on discrimination, violence When Norti Bai, sarpanch of Harmara in Rajasthan, refused to give in to the demands of upper caste men in her village, her daughter-in-law Ram Peari was branded a “witch.” The villagers called for Peari's “social boycott” and excommunication. In Alwar district in the State, Sunita Bairwa of Bahedakhah was assaulted because the upper castes were unhappy about a Dalit being elevated to sarpanch. These...

Interview with Teesta Setalvad of Citizens for Justice and Peace. TEESTA SETALVAD, through her organisation Citizens for Justice and Peace, has been at the forefront of the fight for justice for the victims of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. She has also worked extensively on many other issues affecting minority communities in the State. In this interview to Frontline, she speaks about Chief Minister Narendra Modi's new tactics and the marginalisation...