-The Hindu   Coordinator of the Anti Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project movement, S.P. Udhayakumar, has decided to file defamation case against Union Minister of State for Prime Minister's Office, V. Narayanasamy, for alleging that the protesters were getting money from foreign countries to stop commissioning of the plant. Speaking to reporters here on Saturday, he said that the Congress was supporting the commissioning of the plant. “They are terming us anti-nationals only for...

Justice Markandey Katju has done his own mission, supervising the responsible functioning of the media, a disservice. By criticising the media through sweeping generalisations and with extreme naïvete, he has got its back up, provoking a sharp reaction from the Editors Guild instead of a willingness to talk and sort things out. A lifetime spent in issuing obiter dicta has ill-equipped Justice Katju in the communication skills needed to carry...

Nothing straight can ever emerge from the crooked timber of a parochial mind. Those responsible for the decision to drop A.K. Ramanujan’s essay on the Ramayana from Delhi University’s undergraduate Arts course argue in substance that from childhood these students are told about the sacred character of the epic. This is why it occupies a special place in the Indian psyche. Its characters are perceived to be divine creatures. To...

-The Telegraph   Mamata Banerjee today sprayed a cocktail of petrol price and other grievances on the Centre, warning that the Trinamul Congress could pull out of the UPA government if it “did not think about the masses” and listen to her party. Oil firms said they had little option but to roll back the price increase if the Centre issued such a directive. However, till late this evening, the Prime Minister appeared...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...