Five women — all illegal miners — were buried alive when the roof of a 15ft deep coal pit collapsed on them near Chandrapura junction, 35km from Bokaro steel city, this noon. Two others were injured in the incident. That the mishap took place at Jhungurghuttu, which is a stone’s throw from a bustling railway station and barely 400 metres from the Chandrapura police station, is a clear indication that illegal...

-The Economic Times   Bureaucracy bashing is India's favourite national vocation. And for good reason. Our bureaucracy has its good share of crooks, criminals and cheats who need to be put away - with or without a Lokpal. The simple counter-question is, does the bureaucracy have a disproportionately larger share of crooks than in other professions in India, and the data clearly does not say a resounding yes.  In fact, there is perhaps...

Child malnutrition in Gulbarga and Bijapur districts is a blot on Karnataka's image. Ba Ba Basavanna Anganwadi Hogona Avarekaalu Tinnona Ah, Aaa, Ee, Eee, Bariyona Mane Kadege Hogona (Come, Come, Basavanna Let's go to the anganwadi Let us eat beans And write A, B, C, D, And head towards home.) As Savitri Nimbad sings this ditty, the more than 20 children seated in a circle around her repeat each line in shrill voices. Almost all of them are between three and...

-The Times of India   It was the sheer need for a livelihood that Ram Lal joined his elder brother Hakla in working at an asbestos mine at Netaji Ki Bara in Udaipur as a 12-year-old kid. Now at 34 years, Ram Lal suffers from acute respiratory problems and has been loosing weight constantly not to mention that his body is a skeleton, literally. His elder brother Hakla died in March this...

In Rajasthan’s Neem ka Thana region, the echoes of mining explosives are like clockwork, on the hour every hour. For some time now, another feature has become almost routine here: houses, left unsteady by the explosions, propped up by wooden poles or bricks. Tired of no recourse and continued government harassment, villages have begun a movement to stop illegal mining, primarily led by ex-army servicemen. It began on March 1 this year...