-PTI   In fresh trouble for former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, the special Lokayukta court today issued summons to him and 14 others to appear before it on August 27 in connection with a private complaint against them alleging denotification of lands favouring his family members. Pronouncing the order on the second complaint by advocate Sirajin Basha, Judge Sudhindra Rao said Yeddyurappa and others have been directed to appear on...

Bellary is only the tip of the rotting earthmound. Can a new proposed legislation clear the air? Two years ago, when the ministry of mines decided to use satellite imaging to survey projects, it unearthed several “unusual activities” across the country. “The amount of Mining done and material being exported didn’t match in areas where certain companies had been given licences,” recounts a former senior bureaucrat with the mines ministry....

DESPITE WHAT our reel-life heroes have shown us, perhaps it’s only possible to fight one villain at a time. Still, in his last few days on the job, Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde tried to battle two evils, with two reports that presented damning evidence of corruption in the BJP government. The first report, on illegal Mining, had enough firepower to systematically dig holes in the state government. The second report,...

IF YOU walked down the streets of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi between 3-5 August, you would see what TV cameras aren’t putting out on primetime news. Thousands of farmers from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh to Rohtak in Haryana. On protest. Against the systematic grabbing of their land by various state governments across the political spectrum. On one side of the road, on large green carpets, are about 3,000 farmers,...

After the brutal murder of Azad, is there any hope for well-meaning routine calls for “dialogue” and “peace talks”? What can the "civil society" do as a serious, real intervention? It is reported that the decades-old talks with Naga insurgent groups has made some progress recently (See “Differences ‘narrowed’,” Times of India, July 19, 2011). One reason why talks have a chance in these cases is that separatism comes in...