This newspaper recently hosted its annual debate on whether a resurgent Bengal was an impossible dream. Not surprisingly, the verdict of the 600-odd listeners went against the motion. This has as much to do with tangible societal gains as with an enveloping sense of crisis which embeds enormous opportunities. The glorious past of Bengal needs no persuasion. It was integrated with the rest of the world through trade and interchange...

In a recent lecture, delivered in Mumbai in memory of Nani Palkhivala, the home minister, P. Chidambaram, attacked “left-leaning intellectuals” and “human rights groups”, who, in his view, “plead the naxalite cause ignoring the violence unleashed by the naxalites on innocent men, women and children”. “Why are the human rights groups silent?” asked the home minister. The short answer is that they aren’t, and haven’t been, silent. There are very...

KEY TRENDS • As per the information collected by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) upto 31 October, 2017, 41,89,827 claims (40,50,131 individual and 1,39,696 community claims) have been filed and 18,24,271 titles (17,59,955 individual and 64,316 community claims) have been distributed. A total of 36,51,414 (87.15 percent) claims have been disposed off @@ • In the last 10 years, only 3 percent of the minimum potential of CFR rights could be...