Nearly 1200-1500 farmers from across Punjab, under the banner of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal), on Tuesday began their indefinite protest on the Mohali-Chandigarh border after they were denied entry to Chandigarh. They sat on the road leading from Sector 43-44 in Chandigarh towards Phase VIII in Mohali But a large contingent of police, from both Chandigarh and Mohali, had since early morning closed the road even for regular Traffic. The...

Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, "I am what I am because of  the college". Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: "Why blame the college!" Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating...

The United Nations warned Wednesday that a food shortage could threaten the lives of thousands of people trapped in floodwater in northwestern Pakistan as six U.S. army helicopters joined the relief effort. A U.S. embassy spokesman said four CH-47 Chinook and two UH-60 Blackhawk utility helicopters arrived in Pakistan Wednesday as part of the U.S. government's continued assistance to Pakistan for humanitarian-relief operations. Bad weather and fresh rain hampered helicopter flights, which...

Indian Railways has come to Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) rescue in flood-hit Punjab and Haryana, where part of its foodgrain stocks have been rotting due to heavy rains. The national transporter has given a discount of 35% to the public sector food procurer to carry grains from northern India to other parts of the country. The railways also expects to boost its own revenue by transporting a large volume of...

In this land of rolling hills, made lush by the monsoon, Traffic ceases after dusk. So it is unusual to hear jeeps running through the night on the winding roads of tribal south Rajasthan. Through the day, the local police, villagers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are out in force, trying to stop what they can only slow—the mass Trafficking of children across the border into Gujarat from the Rajasthan districts that...