The issue of acquiring farmland for industry is threatening to jolt West Bengal's Left Front, the world's longest-running democratically elected Communist government, says Sumit Bhattacharya A confidential digital map shows exactly how many land owners had taken the compensation, how many had taken partial compensation, and how many had refused to part with their land for the botched Tata Nano plant in Singur, West Bengal. The map -- based on Global...

I am opposed to any kind of communalism or discrimination on religious or caste lines: Hazare Beware of vilification campaign, Modi writes to social activist The clarification by social activist Anna Hazare on his praising Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his “rural development model” has failed to satisfy his supporters who threatened to dissociate themselves from the movement against corruption. “That is exactly what we are questioning: Mr. Modi's rural development model,...

We should be grateful to Anna Hazare for dedicating his life to the people and battling for accountability in governance. Millions look to him for inspiration and guidance. We are all sick of mismanagement, venality and the lack of accountability that plague not only governance but also other institutions, including many NGOs that call themselves “civil society” institutions, the term made fashionable by international donor agencies. The support base of this...

The promised power from the Jaitapur nuclear project may light up the area, but Nandkumar Raut already finds the future dark. “Almost every family in the village has a police case against at least one member,” said the farmer from Madban, the village closest to the project site in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district. Raut said he has at least three cases foisted on him — one barring him from entering his own village...

Hazare is now fighting possibly the biggest battle of his life, by launching an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi to press for an early enactment of a Lokpal Bill, legislation that would create public ombudsmen to investigate corruption charges against public servants Anna Hazare is a veteran of many battles—as a former soldier and then as a social activist who has forced at least half a dozen Maharashtra ministers to...