Farmers affiliated to the Trinamool Congress whose agricultural land was acquired for a railway project are threatening a major agitation if their family members are not provided with jobs immediately. Their land was acquired for the proposed 20 km Dankuni-Furfura Sharif track in West Bengal and railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had promised a job for every family whose land was taken.Agricultural landowners of Furfura Sharif, a major Muslim pilgrimage site...

Nearly four years after the celebrated doctor and activist Binayak Sen was arrested on charges of aiding the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and conspiring to overthrow the Indian state, the prosecution began its final arguments.The State of Chhattisgarh sought to prove that Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal had actively conspired to assist the urban operations of the CPI (Maoist), a guerrilla party committed to the overthrow...

Forcible acquisition of land for setting up of township at Rajarhat allegedThree years after Nandigram and two years after Singur, the theatre of political combat over land in West Bengal has shifted to Rajarhat on the northeastern fringe of Kolkata, where the Trinamool Congress braces itself for a fresh movement against what it alleges is forcible and dubious acquisition of land for the township coming up in the area. And...

It spreads across five countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa and Bhutan, apart from a total of 34 of the 71 districts in Uttar Pradesh. It involves over 450 Class-I government officials and another 800 middle and lower rung subordinates apart from some 10,000 private entities and may require 5,000 FIRs to cover the scam in totality. The foodgrain scam of Uttar Pradesh has emerged as a strong contender for...

The food scam in Uttar Pradesh could well turn out to be the mother of all scandals and indications are that it could well be worth Rs 2 lakh crore. Here is a timeline of the scam. Nov 2004 | Prashant Chaturvedi, principal secretary, food and civil supplies, seeks information from the railways about loading of rakes for transporting foodgrain to Bangladesh & some other foreign countries Dec 2004 | railways provide...