For decades the sprawling state of Bihar, flat and scorching as a griddle, was something between a punch line and a cautionary tale, the exact opposite of the high-tech, rapidly growing, rising global power India has sought to become. Criminals could count on the police for protection, not prosecution. Highwaymen ruled the shredded roads and kidnapping was one of the state’s most profitable businesses. Violence raged between Muslims and Hindus, between...
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Abstract of Report and Recommendations of the High Power Committee on the extent of damages caused by the Coca-Cola plant
Though Palakkad district in Kerala, where the Coca Cola plant is situated is considered as the ‘rice bowl of Kerala’, a part of the district falling in the rain shadow region of the Western Ghats is drought prone. Plachimada, where the Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL) factory was set up had been classified ‘arable’. The villagers are predominantly landless agricultural labourers with almost 80 percent of the population...
More »Politics of Women's Reservation Bill by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Not a quota within quota but a commitment to social justice and a proactive offer to field women from the subaltern strata. That is the way to silence the opponents of the Bill. Fourteen years and one small victory later, the Women's Reservation Bill has again begun to look iffy. In all this time, a lot many things could have been done independent of the fate of the Bill. Those in...
More »Reunited Yet Divided by Supriya Sharma
AS HE FINISHED an animated anecdote-filled account of how they wrested a tworoom apartment in return for bulldozed homes on the banks of the Sabarmati, Rajendra Nathalal Choudhary turned towards a middle aged man and said, “This is all thanks to Mohammad bhai. He inspired us to unite and fight for our rights. If not for him, we would have been homeless.” Mohammad bhai blushed, in the way a middle-aged man...
More »Development package still eludes Kambalapalli victims by KV Subramanya and Vishwa Kundapura
Even a decade after the horrific episode in which seven Dalits were burnt alive by “caste” Hindus in Kambalapalli village of Chintamani taluk in the then undivided Kolar district, 66 families of the victims are still struggling to lead a dignified life. The State Government, which relocated the 66 Dalit families at a new hamlet called Mini-Kambalapalli on the outskirts of Chintamani town, has not made good on its promises of...
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