In the first reported incident of its kind since the lion poaching incidents of May 2007, a gang of suspected poachers comprising about 25 tribals from Karnataka, was busted in Kodinar, Gir (west), late on Monday night. The tribals were caught with five bags full of different lion body parts, Rs60,000 in cash and some sharp weapons. No carcass of lion has been discovered yet, but foresters believe these tribals to...

WHAT the Government of India did when it appointed P.J. Thomas Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) is inexplicable. For that public office, the government, naturally, ought to have looked for a person whose record did not have even the slightest of ambiguities, and such persons are not difficult to find. There are several civil servants whose integrity is unquestionable. The myth that all bureaucrats are corrupt is not just that, a...

Large scale child labour persists in India, mostly in the agricultural sector and the informal economy despite initiatives by the government and instances of commercial sexual exploitation of minors are oft reported, a US report on the issue said on Wednesday. According to the India section of the annual report of the Department of Labor, children are exploited in the worst forms of child labour with a majority working in agriculture,...

Tamil Nadu: The north-east monsoon, 50 per cent in excess in the State, claims over 200 lives and destroys crops and infrastructure.A SERIES of weather systems, including a cyclone that missed Chennai narrowly, saw the skies open up over Tamil Nadu between November 4 and December 5, the period when the north-east monsoon is most active. Most of the 561 mm of rainfall that the State received between October 1...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today appeared to back the environmental evangelism blessed by Rahul Gandhi and pursued by Jairam Ramesh, saying “the business practices of some corporate houses have come under intense public scrutiny for their perceived ethical deficit”.Although the Prime Minister’s statement, made at India Corporate Week, carries echoes of the corruption charges now swirling around the country, the preceding sentences suggest environment issues were on his mind.Immediately after...