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,...

The recent estimates of employment and unemployment from the 66th round (2009-10) of the National Sample Survey (NSS) belie any hopes that the growth of the Indian economy between 2004-05 and 2009-10 has been inclusive. Employment has expanded by only a million jobs during this period. Not only is this lowest ever growth recorded in any such period, the fact that it occurred during the period of highest growth in...

It’s been raining “rights” in Indian policy for the last few years — education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This “Diet Coke” approach to poverty reduction — the sweetness without the calories — was always dangerous because of unknown side effects. Commenting in 1790 on the consequences of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke said: “They have found their punishment in their success. Laws overturned, tribunals subverted, industry without...

Jharkhand is viewing with serious concern Mamata Banerjee government’s peace initiatives with Maoists in neighbouring Bengal, the apprehensions centred around a prevalent lull in anti-rebel operations that could lead to repercussions in a state that the Union home minister described as the epicentre of left wing extremism. State DGP G.S. Rath believes the developments in Bengal, where peace moves have meant that anti-rebel operations have been reduced to routine patrolling by...

-The Telegraph   All 208 tea gardens in the Terai and the Dooars today put up notices, saying it would be difficult for them to disburse wages and rations in the coming weeks if the embargo on the despatch of tea continued. The Progressive Tea Workers’ Union, the labour wing of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, has been stalling the despatch of tea from gardens since Tuesday to demand a hike in...