—PTI Two new videos have emerged that allegedly provide more proof of official involvement in “human safaris” for the benefit of tourists to see the protected Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands. The videos do not indicate the date when they were shot, but The Observer newspaper said the first film, a three minutes and 19 seconds clip, shot on a mobile phone, showed half-naked girls from the tribe dancing before an...

-The Financial Express   Come next financial year, the PAN card is likely to become the most potent tool for the Income Tax Department to unearth black money, tax evasion and instances of criminal financing in the country. A recent directive of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to the I-T Dept has asked its officials to launch a special drive against those who have "not furnished their PAN (Permanent Account Number)"...

The worst fears of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), have come true with regard to the high per unit cost of power to be produced by the controversial privately-owned Maheshwar hydro project in Madhya Pradesh: Information revealed through an RTI application shows that the private company developing the dam has projected the average cost of electricity to be produced at a whopping Rs. 10 per...

There can be little quarrel with the argument that India requires a comprehensive policy to prevent sex selection as put forward by National Advisory Council members Farah Naqvi and A.K. Shiva Kumar in The Hindu (“India & the sex selection conundrum,” January 24, 2012). That the use of sex selection technologies to abort female foetuses is linked to the increasing devaluation and disempowerment of women is well known. It is...

It is difficult to explain to Indians the wrongness of collective punishment. This is because our identity is collective, and so is our behaviour This month is the 10th anniversary of the incident at Godhra and the events in Gujarat that followed. When the violence began, it was said that the media had made the violence worse. Often this was by its innocence and sometimes by its malice. Was this true? The...