Nearly four years after the celebrated doctor and activist Binayak Sen was arrested on charges of aiding the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and conspiring to overthrow the Indian state, the prosecution began its final arguments.The State of Chhattisgarh sought to prove that Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal had actively conspired to assist the urban operations of the CPI (Maoist), a guerrilla party committed to the overthrow...

The Union government on Friday strongly defended the interception of Niira Radia's telephones, saying that this was done because of a probe into complaints alleging that she "as an agent of foreign intelligence agencies" and was "indulging in anti-national activities." A joint affidavit filed by ministries of home and finance as well as the Income Tax department said, "A complaint was received by the finance minister dated November 16, 2007, inter...

Affidavit silent on Tata's plea to stop further publication of tapesInvestigations not yet over, no question of destroying recordsThe Income Tax Department, which had recorded telephonic conversations of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, was not responsible for the leak of the tapes, a common affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court said on Friday.In its reply to the writ petition filed by industrialist Rata Tata alleging that publication of...

The food scam in Uttar Pradesh could well turn out to be the mother of all scandals and indications are that it could well be worth Rs 2 lakh crore. Here is a timeline of the scam. Nov 2004 | Prashant Chaturvedi, principal secretary, food and civil supplies, seeks information from the railways about loading of rakes for transporting foodgrain to Bangladesh & some other foreign countries Dec 2004 | Railways provide...

Abhijeet Sen, Member, Planning Commission talks about the many contentious issues surrounding the Right to Food Act. Does India have enough grain, is it willing to pledge resources, or is it simply anxious to limit its commitments. In fact, why have a Right to Food at all? Rupashree Nanda: Sir, the many drafts of the ambitious legislation "Right To Food", have been disappointing. The Planning Commission note is almost a let...