-PTI A Delhi court, hearing a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, was today told by the CBI that there was a conspiracy of “terrifying proportion” between him and the police during riots. “There was a conspiracy of terrifying proportion with the complicity of the police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar,” CBI prosecutor R.S. Cheema told district judge J.R. Aryan. Winding up the prosecution arguments, Cheema focused...

Anand Patwardhan’s paean to Dalits, that took 14 years to compose, probes even as it praises, says Saroj Giri THERE IS an entrenched tendency to represent Dalits fighting for rights and reservations as just (another) competitive bloc vying for self-interest and power. It leads to a pernicious inversion: ‘Dalit rights’ dividing the nation along caste lines. Victim as perpetrator! Anand Patwardhan’s film Jai Bhim Comrade takes us beyond the grid of...

-The Times of India Joining forces against the government, yoga guru Baba Ramdev and activist Anna Hazare on Friday said the duo will launch a nationwide campaign for a strong Lokpal and return of black money from May 1. The two leaders have also announced plans to sit on a day-long token fast in Delhi on June 3.  "We need two movements to bring back black money and for a strong Lokpal....

-The Economist West Bengal’s populist chief minister is doing badly. Yet she typifies shifts in power in India BUYER’S remorse is common enough in the dusty markets of Kolkata, a delightful if crumbling great city, once known as Calcutta and still capital of the state of West Bengal. Those who buy cheap plastic goods or plaster-of-Paris busts of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal’s cultural hero, may come to regret their haste. Likewise, many who...

-Kafila.org When the Parliament’s budget session re-opens on April 24, the Rajya Sabha will vote on an annulment motion against the IT Rules promulgated in April 2011 that provide for “intermediaries” to remove the online content they are asked to by anyone. The motion has been moved by P Rajeeve, Rajya Sabha member from the Communist Party of India-Marxist. Speaking on the phone from Thrissur, Rajeeve said, “The IT Rules go against...