Victims have not forgotten the following brutal tragedies in the life of independent India, even if the State and political parties may pretend to have. 1984—Delhi: On October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for ‘Operation Bluestar’. For the next three days, as Doordarshan telecast the lying in state of her body, over 3000 Sikhs—men and boys—were burnt alive while policemen, politicians and...

-The Telegraph   Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said the state government had “taken back” through an ordinance the 997.11 acres lying with the Tatas and vendors in Singur to fulfil the promise of returning plots to disgruntled farmers. The dramatic announcement evoked studied silence from the Tatas, sounded the death knell for the agreement the business group signed with the erstwhile Left government and triggered hair-splitting that raised questions about the...

-IBN   Asking the Orissa government to consult opposition political parties before signing fresh MoU with Posco-India, BJP today said it would oppose any move to allow a captive port and iron ore swapping for the proposed steel project."In order to safeguard the interest of the state, the government must hold consultations with opposition parties and take their views on Posco project before signing the fresh MoU," senior BJP leader and...

The Orissa government would wait for the views of its department secretaries in the next two weeks before taking a call on the renewal of the MoU with Posco. A high-level meeting of chaired by Chief Secretary B K Patnaik on Tuesday deferred a decision on recommending the revised Posco MoU to the Chief Minister as several department secretaries indicated that they needed time to study the new points. The government...

If access to information is the first step towards empowerment, then it is important to make Internet accessibility a human right because a lot of useful information, particularly relating to government schemes, is either unpublished or inaccessible by other means for most citizens The government’s approach towards universal Internet access is marred by dichotomy. While the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, calls Internet one of the most effective means of...