-The Indian Express   Almost a decade after the Gujarat riots of 2002, the first verdict in the nine post-Godhra cases monitored by the Supreme Court has been pronounced, and 31 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court for the deaths of 33 Muslims at Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. Among the victims were 17 women and 11 children. When the court lifted the stay on the trials...

-Express News Service   A special riots court awarded life sentences to 31 people, mostly landed Patels of Sardarpura village in this district, for killing 33 Muslims who were employed as their farm labourers and were their neighbours, to avenge the Godhra train burning of February 27, 2002. Of the dead, 17 were women and 11 children. Principal District Judge S C Srivastava convicted them for murder, rioting and promoting enmity between different...

It has to be but a means to development, not an end in itself Is India doing marvellously well, or is it failing terribly? Depending on whom you speak to, you could pick up either of those answers with some frequency. One story, very popular among a minority but a large enough group—of Indians who are doing very well (and among the media that cater largely to them)—runs something like...

It is time to separate people's real needs from the arbitrary assessments of poverty that have guided Indian governments India's poverty line has always been a matter of huge debate, but it was a discussion mostly confined to economists and policymakers. But the matter has now gone public, following a row about an affidavit from the planning commission to the supreme court of India, in which the official poverty line was...

Why is it that the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption does not seek to have the Lokpal cover NGOs, corporate houses and the corporate media? Gautam Navlakha (gnavlakha@gmail.com) is a member of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi.   It would be churlish to dismiss “Team Anna’s” mass mobilisation which is an assertion of our collective right to protest. This is especially so in view of the fact that after having waited...