Vigilance officers probing misappropriation of over Rs 2 crore from funds meant to build schools in Bokaro district today revealed how a schoolteacher siphoned off money and kept his opponents at bay by threatening them with punishment postings in Naxalite-hit areas. DSPs Narendra Singh, Jayant Kumar, Dhaneshwar Ram and inspectors Shashi Bhushan and Tej Narain, who arrived here from Ranchi two days ago following a high court censure over the tardy...

When a victim of trafficking is rescued, the reports often describe in detail the physical torture, the sex and the violence that was forced on her. But not where she came from, nor where she is going. Now that she has been rescued, what does life have on offer? “Trafficking is an invisible crime,” said Malini Bhattacharya, chairperson of the West Bengal women’s commission. No camera captures the moment a person...

Despite announcement of record-breaking price for purchase of sugarcane, some sections of farmers still agitated at Madhya and Sayan Sugar factories demanding enhanced rates for the produce. Police lathicharged them at Madhi Sugar Factory premises near here on late Wednesday. Despite anger over the incident among the farmers, no violent incident was reported on Thursday from anywhere in the region. Purchase rates were announced for Bardoli, Chalthan, Madhi, Kamrej, Gandevi,...

Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

Madvi Madka owns 4ha of land in Chingavaram in the Sukum block in central India. The district in which the block is located has become infamous after 6 April, killing of 76 policemen by the Maoists. This is the ground zero of the war between the Indian state and the Maoists, and Madka, who owns 4ha of land—often left fallow because there wasn’t enough water for irrigation—here used to make...