The high-handedness of the Trinamool government in West Bengal has now raised international concern. This time it's the arrest of Partho Sarothi Ray, a molecular biologist of international repute. National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy and renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky and more than four dozen other prominent scientists and public figures from across India and other countries have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to get the academician released after...

The task of positive disciplining will be trickier for the new age teachers, who are already grappling with the new found malaise of increasing student aggression on teachers.  With “corporal Punishment” and “mental harassment” punishable under the new Right to Education Act, many educators are left nonplussed.  Yes, most of them believe sparing the rod need not necessarily spoil the child, but how can teachers abdicate their prime responsibility of shaping young...

A designated Special Investigation Team (SIT) court on Thursday pronounced the quantum of sentence in the Ode massacre case in which 23 people were found guilty of killing 23 Muslims in the Ode town of central Gujarat during the 2002 riots. Judge Poonam Singh punished 18 persons, guilty of murder, with life imprisonment and five others, guilty of attempt to murder, with seven-year jail term. The charges of conspiracy, rioting, arson,...

The key issue is not availability or resources but last mile delivery: how to reach foodgrains to people. In ancient Greece, the Punishment given to Tantalus was to tie a cup around his neck and fill it with water. Every time he bent to take a sip, the cup would drop further and he would never get a drop into his parched mouth. From this comes the word “tantalizing”. Something like...

-The Times of India   More than a decade after 23 people, mostly women and children, were killed when a mob set ablaze a shelter for Muslims huddled together for safety in Ode during the post-Godhra riots, a Gujarat court on Monday found 23 of the suspects guilty of murder and conspiracy. The Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) has sought the death sentence for those convicted of murder.  The special court in...