-The Telegraph   Sharad Pawar’s hometown Baramati was shut down today by farmers demanding higher remunerative prices for sugarcane. The protest by the farmers has sent a strong political message to the ruling Congress-NCP government. Baramati is the seat of Maharashtra’s powerful and influential sugar belt that controls the state politics. Shops and establishments were closed down as hundreds of sugarcane farmers camping here for the fourth consecutive day intensified their protest and organised rasta...

Gail Omvedt, an America-born Indian, is a social anthropologist trained in the radical academic setting of the University of California during the angry 1960s and the tumultuous 1970s. Her doctoral thesis on the “Non-Brahman movement in western India, 1873-1920” set the stage for her engagement with the subcontinent. Today, first-rate professionals are making a beeline for the West, but in Omvedt we have an instance of the ‘reverse flow' happening some...

A river of bows and arrows slid through the urbane lanes of Raipur civil lines, coming to a startling stop outside the chief minister's gated and guarded residence in the autumn air of November 1st, the founding day of Chhattisgarh. As the police whisked them away, the tribal protestors told journalists they were asking for the most basic constitutional right: proportional reservation in government jobs. Eleven years ago, the sprawling state...

A stream of men holding bows and arrows slid through the lanes of Raipur's Civil Lines, coming to a startling stop outside chief minister Raman Singh's residence on November 1, the founding day of Chhattisgarh. As the police whisked them away, the tribal protestors told journalists they were asking for the most basic constitutional right: proportional reservation in government jobs.  Eleven years ago, the sprawling state of Madhya Pradesh was trimmed...

  As part of a drive against encroachment on government land, a big herd of cattle was pushed into agricultural fields in Raigarh to stampede the crops cultivated by Dalit farmers. The panchayat in Chicho-umariya village, 240 km east of Raipur, has defended the incident, which took place on October 30 and has created tension in the area. Local BJP leader Kartikram Pradhan, who also allegedly performs the role of sarpanch-pati (husband of...