The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...
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BJP’s Team B by Dhirendra K Jha
The mask is off. Team Anna and his lieutenants are batting for the BJP On 30 October last year, when Mohan Bhagwat claimed that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement was actually supported by the RSS, the remark conveyed palpable nervousness and attracted criticism from Team Anna. Three months later, as Team Anna launches its voters’ awareness campaign in UP, there is not even an attempt to keep its secular mask intact. The mask,...
More »Tiller, Traitor, Developer, Sly by G Vishnu
SHEILA DEVI, 54, of Nangal Kalan village in Haryana’s Sonepat district cannot comprehend how Taneja Developers and Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) procured her two-acre plot in 2004, ‘signed’ with thumb impressions of her husband Narender Singh, who died in 2002 and his brother Bhupender, who went missing the next year. The documents are obviously forged. But how did a farmers’ family get cheated in Haryana, where the land acquisition policy formed in...
More »From food security to food justice by Ananya Mukherjee
If the malnourished in India formed a country, it would be the world's fifth largest — almost the size of Indonesia. According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 237.7 million Indians are currently undernourished (up from 224.6 million in 2008). And it is far worse if we use the minimal calorie intake norms accepted officially in India. By those counts (2200 rural/2100 urban), the number of Indians who cannot afford...
More »Dalit sugarcane worker burnt to death, one held by Amruta Byatnal
He was killed on Sunday for not returning Rs. 5,000 at his residence A day after 32-year-old Dalit sugarcane labourer Shahadev Tayad succumbed to burns, the accused Vashisht Dhake who allegedly burnt him was caught by the police on Monday, but the Tayad's family's efforts to come to terms with the loss have just begun. According to the police, Dhake burnt Tayad on January 8 for not returning Rs. 5,000 at his...
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