Thousands of people here today attended the last rites of the farmer who was allegedly killed in the police lathi charge at Kot Dunna village last evening. The farmers were protesting against the acquisition of their land for a thermal plant at Gobindpura in Mansa. The district administration has agreed to give Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the family of the deceased farmer, besides recommending a job for one member...

The Right to Information Act was the great white hope of Indian citizens who are consistently denied rightful information. Not only does it specify that most information in the public domain would be provided to citizens by right, but it also ensured that failure to do so by the bloated bureaucracy would result in penalties for erring officials. Trust the government, though, to subvert its own good intentions. The state government has...

“Freedom from fear” and “Punishment-free zone” read the slogans on the school walls. These signify the end of corporal punishment. They take on a different meaning, though, when schools are occupied by the police, as they are around Dhinkia and Govindpur, the villages resisting the State's takeover of their farmland for Posco's mega power and steel project ( The Hindu , July 13-14). Children here grabbed national attention when they joined...

It's been a year and three months since the right to education became an act (RTE Act), promising free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of 6-14 years. However, the act is yet to be implemented in Uttar Pradesh. The norms of the Right to Education Act say that the appropriate government and the local authority shall establish a school where it is not so established...

-The Business Standard   The government’s cup of woes with regard to the much-hyped Posco project seem to be brimming over. Even as the anti-Posco activists have forced the Jagatsinghpur district administration to stop land acquisition for the project at Gobindpur and Dhinkia, the project supporters, who had assisted the officials in an almost trouble-free land acquisition in Gadakujang and Nuagaon panchayats, are now peeved with the administration for non-fulfilment of...