Former BJP state president Suresh Pujari has opposed the arrest of a NREGA whistleblower in Jharsuguda district. Pujari said Gunanidhi Barik, former sarpanch of Lakhanpur block, has been falsely implicated by police and demanded a probe into it. Barik had tried to stop the block supervisor from taking signature of the NREGA beneficiaries without releasing the money and warned him of dire consequences if the rest amount is not paid. The...

The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad today “took back” land that was being used by a Siliguri-based planter as a small tea garden for the past five years, alleging that he had duped the Adivasi owners. The Jalpaiguri administration has termed the “takeover” illegal. “Who gave them the rights or the responsibility of reclaiming tribal land? There is an administration and government procedure for everything. They should have come to us...

For the first time, SHO also identified as one of the alleged perpetrators of crime The trial in the case was shifted to the Rohini Sessions Court last December ‘Families of the accused are threatening witnesses with dire consequences' Kamla, whose physically challenged daughter and husband were killed in the Mirchpur caste violence case in which 18 Dalit houses were also burnt in April last year, has identified 81 of the 98 accused...

Indian Social Action Forum, Janhastakshep, People's Union for Civil Liberties, All-India Students Association and other citizens' groups jointly staged a protest demonstration near Maharashtra Sadan here on Monday condemning the detention and harassment of yatris taking part in the anti-nuclear yatra in Maharashtra. In a memorandum to the Resident Commissioner of Maharashtra, the protesters demanded that there be no interruption in the route of the yatra and also an end to...

A three-day Tarapur-Jaitapur anti-nuclear plant yatra was stopped the moment it began and hundreds of activists were detained at Boisar in this district on Saturday. Activists and supporters, including Justices (retired) B G Kolse-Patil and P.B. Sawant, social activist Vaishali Patil, and Admiral (retd) L Ramdas, were whisked away in police vans from Panchmarg Tarapur, where they had addressed a public meeting in the morning. They were brought to the Boisar...