The two most important national level committees responsible for wildlife conservation in India are increasingly being turned into rubber stamps for whatever officialdom wants done. The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has become a forum to greenwash a host of ‘development’ projects that threaten wildlife habitats, while the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) continues to steamroller a blinkered model of conservation. In both, civil society members have been reduced to either...

India is today the world's largest importer of arms. These include fighter jet planes, missiles and radar systems for strategic partnerships and geo-political power. India is also investing in security and surveillance to combat foreign threats and resistance from its own people in places like the Kashmir valley, and the North East and tribal regions of Central India. This provides tremendous opportunity for multi-national corporations to sell and invest in...

Writer and activist Arundhati Roy, winner of the 1997 Man Booker prize for “The God of Small Things,” is undoubtedly India’s iconoclast no.1. During the launch of her two latest books—“Broken Republic” and “Walking With the Comrades” —on Friday evening, she came to the defence of the military tactics of India’s Maoists in her polemical best: “When you have 800 CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force, a paramilitary force deployed to fight...

For most people in cities, Labour Day (or May Day, which was on May 1) was just another public holiday that nobody thought too much about. On a day marked to give voice to the rights of the Indian work force, perhaps one ought to consider those who have been forced to join their ranks too soon - child labourers. According to government estimates, an astounding 42.02% of the Indian workforce...

Bhatta Parsaul was once a quiet farming village but now, as it finds itself at the centre of a major political row, it is strewn with mounds of ash, burnt-out motorcycles, tractors and cars. In early May villagers here clashed with armed police who tried to break up a four-month-old sit-in protest at the village. They had been fighting the terms of the acquisition of their farmland in the Greater Noida...