Succumbing to pressure from leaders of an aggrieved Muslim community, the Rajasthan Government on Saturday decided to hand over investigation of the Gopalgarh firing in Bharatpur to the CBI. At the same time, it also ordered a judicial probe into the incident in which eight persons were killed and 20 injured. The Government also conceded to the demand of removing district collector Krishan Kunal and SP Hinglaz Dan for failing to assess...

Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

With the National Integration Council discussing the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill drafted by the National Advisory Council (NAC), the consensus against the legislation has been consolidated. Till then, the charge had been led primarily by the archetypal minority bashers, the constituents of the Sangh Parivar, who refused to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth about communal and targeted violence — that it is minorities and Dalits who bear the...

-DNA   Tamil Nadu government ordered a judicial probe into Sunday’s police firing in Ramanathapuram district which claimed seven lives. “What happened at Paramakudi was unfortunate and we are forming an inquiry commission under a retired high court judge to probe the whole incident,” Jayalalithaa told the state assembly on Monday. Seven people were killed and more than fifty persons injured when police opened fire to quell a riot unleashed by a group...

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress today expressed “serious objections” to the proposed bill against communal violence, saying the current draft undermined the country’s federal structure. The BJP said it would intensify its campaign against the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Regulations) Bill, 2011, emboldened by the objections of other non-Congress parties, although none backed its pet “bias against Hindus” line. ( ) Mamata did not attend the National...