-The Hindu   West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should clarify whether her earlier utterances that there were no Maoists in the State were “correct or wrong,” said Biman Bose, chairman of the State's Left Front Committee here on Sunday, a day after she set a seven-day deadline for the extremists in the Jangalmahal region on her offer of talks on condition that they give up their arms. “They [the Trinamool Congress] had...

-The Telegraph   It was a stormy homecoming for chief minister Tarun Gogoi with members of the All Assam Students’ Union waving black flags and Opposition parties raising the pitch against the Indo-Bangla land-swap deal. From the AASU to former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta to the All India United Democratic Front, everyone went after the three-time chief minister for having allegedly sold out the interests of Assam vis-à-vis the land deal as...

The flawed Bill on food security has not received the kind of publicity that the Lokpal Bill has, but that does not diminish its significance. “THIS government has divided everything and everyone. There are different cards for different sections of the poor. If my employer, taking pity on me, gives me an old television, I am not entitled to a yellow card [Below Poverty Line card]. My son who is...

The Anna Hazare fast has seen an outpouring of support across the country. The government Lokpal Bill is unacceptable. A fresh Bill is needed for an effective Lokpal. There has been an outpouring of support all over the country in favour of the fast conducted by Anna Hazare for the Jan Lokpal Bill. The agitation has found support predominantly from the urban middle classes and a substantial section of youth belonging...

The State's public education system faces the threat of dilution from several quarters. WHEN a national law is finally in place to ensure that not a single child is out of school, there is a growing concern in Kerala, which already has a well-established, though languishing, public education system, about the United Democratic Front (UDF) government's moves to sanction a large number of private, unaided schools. The decision to issue no...