Two years after the Tatas moved out of the Nano compound in Bengal, Singur is all set to return to the forefront of a political tug-of-war next week. CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will address a public meeting in the area on January 9 and Trinamool Congress will follow suit a few days later. However on the ground, the defiance has mellowed to a murmur. Landowners have given up hope of getting their...

Swami Aseemanand is the latest big name in the "Hindutva" terror web blamed for a series of blasts; starting with Samjhauta Express in 2007 to the ones at shrines in Hyderabad, Ajmer and Malegaon. The 58-year-old, whose real name is Jatin Chatterjee, is best known for reconverting tribals in the remote Dangs area of Gujarat from Christianity to Hinduism. But as the anti-terrorist squad and then the National Investigation Agency...

The food subsidy bill for 2010-11 could shoot up by nearly Rs 25,000 crore to touch Rs 80,000 crore, putting further pressure on the government’s finances, a food ministry official said on Tuesday. The government has budgeted Rs 55,578 crore for the current fiscal. The sharp increase in the subsidy is because of higher minimum support price ( MSP )) for crops and the government holding food stock that are nearly three times...

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat today backed politburo member S. Ramachandran Pillai on genetically modified crops, saying his remarks were in line with the party’s views. “What he has said is the understanding of the party. He (SRP) also explained why we are opposed to Bt cotton and Bt brinjal,” Karat told The Telegraph. Pillai told a seminar in Kerala that “it is superstitious to completely oppose” genetically modified seeds, a shift...

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we...