PRONAB MONDAL TRAVELLED TO THE DENSE FORESTS OF JUNGLE MAHAL IN WEST MIDNAPORE TO FIND OUT HOW MAOISTS ARE USING THE RESPITE FROM POLICE OPERATIONS NOT ONLY TO REGROUP BUT ALSO TO LAUNCH DEVELOPMENT WORK TO WIN OVER THE IMPOVERISHED VILLAGERS Scene I: A small, one-room building with an asbestos roof in the middle of a forest in West Midnapore’s Jungle Mahal. Inside, a man SITs at a table with a...

The Anna Hazare movement demands no activism from its followers, not even a clear understanding of the specific demands. “COMBATING corruption”, like “promoting peace”, can mean anything to anyone; and precisely because of this “fuzziness” it appeals to everyone. Some join the anti-corruption movement because they are against “corporate loot”; others join because they are against the Nehru-Gandhi “dynasty”; and still others join because they oppose the “corrupt practice of...

Anna Hazare’s fast is over, but the conjuncture of which that fast was an episode is not: Hazare’s own movement, or other similar movements, are bound to recur in the coming months. The question naturally arises: what are these movements all about? And to start with: what was Hazare’s own movement all about? It was certainly not about “corruption” in any definable sense. That word meant different things to the...

-Outlook   A farmer SITting on a dharna along with other peasants to protest acquiSITion of land for the proposed nuclear power plant in the district died today at PGIMS, Rohtak. Ishwar Singh Siwach, a Gorakhpur village farmer, was shifted from the Civil Hospital, Fatehabad, to Rohtak last evening in a serious condition, police said. He died this morning, they said. The 60-year-old farmer was taken ill when he was SITting on the dharna...

-The Business Recorder   Surging flood waters in northern and eastern India have affected millions of people, forcing many from their homes as swollen rivers wash away roads and make rescue work difficult, government and aid officials said on Friday. Aid workers said 5.2 million people are now affected, double the figure from 10 days ago, as tail-end seasonal monsoon rains sweep the heavily-populated states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam where...