River Brahmaputra has eaten more than half of Asia's largest riverine island Majuli over the last 60 years. With land disappearing, there is progressive loss of the traditional means of livelihood of its people, leading to their displacement. Some lately are migrating even as far away as Andhra Pradesh, finds out Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty after a visit. Farmer Sridhar Bora stops mid-way as he brings down his axe on a tree...

-The Hindustan Times No one is above the law — this was chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s firm response to the Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) request to release the seven directors of Kolkata’s Advanced Medicare Research Institute (AMRI). The Delhi-based chamber of commerce had taken the plea that the directors had not been involved in the hospital operations. So their arrest following the December 9 fire, that killed...

A late-night crackdown by the police and paramilitary forces on anti-mega dam protesters in Lakhimpur district triggered raging protests at several places in Assam on Monday. The police arrested more than 200 protesters, who since December 16 had been blocking vehicles transporting equipment and construction materials, through National Highway 52, for the NHPC's 2,000-MW Lower Subonsiri hydroelectric project at Gerukamukh in Arunachal Pradesh. To protest the police action, five organisations, including the...

The state government has been blamed for actively aiding and abetting the Adarsh housing society scam, in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, which was tabled in the legislative assembly on Friday. Accusing the state machinery of overlooking subversion of rules and regulations by the society and granting unreasonable concessions, the CAG has termed the scam as a "failure in governance at all levels". Many officers,...

-The Times of India   A resident of Satellite, Gunjan Mehta, submitted an application of complaint to senior city police officials after she was allegedly harassed by certain junior cops last week. The incident, according to the Mehta, took place when she had sought information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. She alleged that the police personnel with whom she spoke on this issue misbehaved with her. Mehta claimed in an application...