-Frontline PESA, which is seen as an enabling law for tribal self-governance, is violated brazenly by both the Union government and State governments in the name of development. SINCE October 2012, the Ministry of Rural Development of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has apparently been engaged in an exercise to evolve a "National Land Reforms Policy". Over these months, the Ministry wrote to various State governments, highlighting the importance of...

-The Telegraph The "Bonzi" edifice, Bengal's version of the fraudulent Ponzi scheme that conned US investors a century ago, is shaking at its foundations. The panic set off by Saradha defaulting on payments has spread to similar schemes run by other firms and triggered protests and attacks on company offices in several parts of the state. These schemes' mostly small-time rural investors have begun to panic about the safety of their hard-earned...

-The Hindu   Asian Centre for Human Rights blames Centre, States for continuing assault There was a 336 per cent increase in child rape cases in the country between 2001 and 2011, a large number of the crimes committed in juvenile justice homes run and aided by the government. Citing National Crime Records Bureau statistics, the latest report on child sexual assaults in India says 48,338 rape cases were reported during the decade. Tip of...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: Bengal is sitting on a powder keg. And the fuse could well have been lit on Friday as a 33-year-old agent of Saradha Group, a chit fund company that has gone bust, committed suicide being unable to pay his depositors while over 3,000 agents laid siege to chief minister Mamata Banerjee's residence in protest against the lockdown. The turn of events has triggered fears of a repeat...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: From Mamata Banerjee's backyard in Harish Chatterjee Street to Contai in East Midnapore, a contagion of protests is spreading in several parts of Bengal. Funds collection agents of the Saradha Group are besieging the seats of power with appeals to step in and avert a run on the chit fund-fuelled company since the Trinamul government was seen as the undeclared gilt-edged guarantor during the good times. Trinamul lent credence to...