-Express News Service Branding the Adarsh scam a “classic example of the fence eating the crops” and “how a select and powerful elite could collude to subvert rules and regulations for personal benefit” , the Comptroller and Auditor General has slammed the government and officials in its audit of the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society. The report, that was tabled in the Assembly on Friday, called the entire Adarsh episode a remarkable case...

-The Times of India   Armed tribals on Wednesday blocked the Bhanjanagar-Dasaplla road at Gayaganda in Ganjam district in protest against the arrest of 29 tribals from Ambajahari within Tarsingi forest range. Forest personnel raided the reserve forest and arrested these people for constructing their house by encroaching upon forest land and chopping trees, divisional forest officer, Ghumusar (South) B B Behera said. Behera said the encroachers tried to attack the forest personnel...

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu , October 14, 2011), observed candidly: “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre.” There lay the main cause of the festering sore of naxalism, often characterised as left-wing...

-Press Information Bureau   The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is implementing Central Sector, Centrally Sponsored and Special Area Programme for the integrated socio-economic development of all  Scheduled Tribes in the country. These schemes/programmes are meant for welfare of  the tribal people, including those living in Maoist affected areas.  A list of  majorschemes/programmes of the Ministry is Annexed. The Integrated Action Plan (IAP) was approved on 25.11.2010 for 60 selected tribal and backward...

Kandhamal was not a spontaneous outburst of mass anger. And the victims still await justice. It was a terrifying Christmas in 2007 for tribal and dalit Christians who live in the second poorest, deeply forested district of Odisha, Kandhamal. Long-smouldering violence targeting them exploded, and was to continue to rage for another full year. During this time, 600 villages were ransacked, 5,600 houses were looted and burnt, 54,000 persons rendered homeless,...