Four days after the riots that killed four in Rudrapur, the exodus hasn’t stopped. Over the six hours during which curfew was relaxed on Wednesday and Thursday, hundreds left the town. Just before the curfew was lifted on Thursday evening, the town celebrated Dussehra. The event was more ritualistic than celebratory. The three effigies were burnt down, and the Mahatma Gandhi ground emptied in a matter of minutes. There is no history...

A 6.9-magnitude earthquake epicentred 68km northwest of Gangtok struck at 6.11pm today, killing 14 people in India and four in Nepal and sending people rushing out of buildings from Calcutta to Delhi. Nine died in worst-hit Sikkim, one each in Siliguri, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri, and two minor children in Bihar, including a boy crushed in a stampede. Several houses collapsed and walls developed cracks in Gangtok, where many tall buildings have...

Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

At the collapse site in Shalimar Garden area, thousands of onlookers gathered to have a glimpse of what some of them had already expected. Several nearby residents told mediapersons that an RTI activist was put behind bars when he tried to file RTIs to find out the truth — the manner in which construction was allowed at the building that collapsed. On Saturday evening, residents confronted officials of Ghaziabad administration and...

In contrast to the 1990s, when age-old matters of identity drove electoral politics, it appears that development-related issues such as land acquisition and law and order will play a critical role in the contentious campaign for the UP elections due next year. While this can be attributed to the BSP’s “sarvajan” agenda, it also signals the impact of the market economy and the need to attract private investment, which has...