A rapid assessment of the effects of Endosulfan on cashew plantations, ecology, biodiversity and the people in Kasaragod, conducted by V.S. Vijayan of Salim Ali Foundation, has surmised that the human sufferings and loss of biodiversity caused by the aerial spraying of Endosulfan by the State-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala in Kasaragod district would qualify as ‘State-sponsored crime'. The study said the State was duty-bound to provide total support to the...

Do you know that the highest number of corruption cases are registered in Maharashtra (4566) and the lowest in West Bengal (only 9) between 2000 and 2009? Do you also want to know how much property has been recovered from the corrupt in different states of India in the past ten years? But how does one systematically track corruption? How to get details of the number of cases going on...

The government may be facing an unprecedented barrage of corruption charges and an embarrassing Lokpal bill stir, but India Corruption Study, 2010, reveals that there is a marked decline in the percentage of people who feel graft has increased since 2005. Centre for Media Studies has conducted the survey. Rural population across 12 states — three of them Congress-ruled — was surveyed. The foreword has been written by NAC member Aruna...

No one has died of starvation in conflict-hit villages in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, but tribals are 'living with starvation, in great penury and destitution', the Surpeme Court's Special Commissioner Harsh Mander has submitted in his report. In a strong indictment of the state government as well as Left Wing Extremists, the commissioner has reported that everyone – the security forces, naxals and 'vigilante armed civilian groups' — have unleashed unending cycles...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council will send the Working Group's Draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 to the Union Home and Law Ministries within a week to solicit their comments, especially on its “legal dimensions,” NAC sources told The Hindu on Thursday. Once the Centre responds to the draft, the Working Group will revise the Bill and bring it back to the...