In 2010, Andhra Pradesh witnessed a series of suicides. These were not cases of farmers' suicides—a regular occurrence in the state which continues to be in the grip of an agrarian crisis. The victims in these cases happened to be the poorest of the poor; most of them illiterate dalits and adivasis. The first information reports (FIRs) of the police reveal that most of the suicides were due to coercive...
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An Ineffectual Start for Elder Sister by Dan Morrison
When Mamata Banerjee defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) last May after 34 years of power in West Bengal, her victory was portrayed by optimists as the beginning of a Kolkata Spring. Free of the communists’ rural thugs and urban heelers, the story went, the state would finally enter the 21st century. One year after Banerjee’s landslide, however, the new boss is looking a lot like the old one —...
More »Don't punish a poor man for suicide bid: Court
-The Times of India Suicide may be a crime in law but the jury is still out on the question of punishment for those who survive the attempt. A bid to take one's own life attracts a jail term of up to one year, but a number of experts feel this amounts to punishing the victim. Now a trial court in Delhi has said that a person who attempts to commit suicide...
More »Politics of violence by Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay
West Bengal: The murder of two CPI(M) leaders in Bardhaman district points to an increase in political violence in the State. THE brutal murder of Pradip Tah, a former legislator belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M), and Kamal Gayen, another senior leader of the party, in broad daylight, allegedly by Trinamool Congress supporters, in West Bengal's Bardhaman district on February 22 once again points to an...
More »Gujarat 2002 and Modi’s Misdeeds by Anand Teltumbde
Ten years after the killings in Gujarat, Narendra Modi has neither expressed regret nor has he been held accountable for those mass deaths. Where do we go from here? Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a writer and civil rights activist with the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai. Just thinking of it, a shiver runs down my spine. I had my own brush with how the Hindutva gangs carried out the...
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