We must not allow the pain and suffering of the Sikh victims to be transformed into a political instrument to mute calls for justice for the ‘other' victims of similarly orchestrated massacres. More than a quarter century on, not much remains of ‘1984' — shorthand for one of the largest pogroms in India's postcolonial history when thousands of Sikhs were massacred in retribution for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination — in...

When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband's two brothers who had failed to find wives. "My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his brothers," said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village...

Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the Supreme Court commissioners on the right to food, is up in arms against the National Food Security Bill. “Despite multiple meetings and many suggestions put forward, what we have is a mockery of a bill. The government has made a dog’s breakfast out of the right to food bill,” he exclaims. Patnaik’s is not a one-off complaint. Some argue that the country’s law-making process is...

-PTI   CPI(M) and other parties, including scientists and activists, on Sunday came together to form a national committee to support the struggle against the Jaitapur nuclear project in Maharashtra. A 15-member National Committee in Support of Jaitapur Struggle will have CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, his CPI counterpart AB Bardhan, former Atomic Energy Regulatory Board chairman Dr A Gopalkrishnan and former Union finance secretary SP Shukla as members among others. "The people of...

Directs Centre to submit detailed report on project cost and land acquisition The ambitious river linking project, connecting rivers of peninsular India with  Himalayan rivers through canals, has hit a roadblock after the Supreme Court's observation that the project would burden the Union government because of escalating costs. While environmentalists and activists have welcomed the order seeking detailed report on the project's cost, the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has commenced...