Why is it that the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption does not seek to have the Lokpal cover NGOs, corporate houses and the corporate media? Gautam Navlakha (gnavlakha@gmail.com) is a member of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi.   It would be churlish to dismiss “Team Anna’s” mass mobilisation which is an assertion of our collective right to protest. This is especially so in view of the fact that after having waited...

The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...

-The Hindu   The Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) has strongly opposed the new National manufacturing Policy approved by the Union Cabinet recently and termed it as an attempt by the government to give back door entry to the so-called labour reform of ‘hire and fire' being pressed by the business houses. “The national manufacturing policy will create new islands of lawlessness with bountiful concessions to business houses and absolute jungle raj...

Water, the most vital of all resources, has emerged as a key issue that would determine if Asia is headed toward cooperation or competition. After all, the driest continent in the world is not Africa but Asia, where availability of freshwater is not even half the global annual average of 6,380 cubic metres per inhabitant. When the estimated reserves of rivers, lakes, and aquifers are added up, Asia has less than...

Urban India's greatest comforts are the cause of a super-size health problem: obesity. Easy access to high-calorie packaged foods, sedentary lifestyles and a predilection for gizmos have resulted in almost 70% Indians in mega-cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore or Chennai being overweight or obese, says a new multi-city survey. The profiling of 46,000 urban Indians-all of whom have access to the internet-showed that 49% were obese or had a...