SOMETIMES, TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback. The year is 2006. An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What could...

Some news is considered more worth publicizing than some other news. This is part of an essential discipline, for otherwise we will remain perennially buried under an avalanche of data, information and gossip. The wheat, never mind the change of metaphor, has to be separated from the chaff. The media perform this task. Occasionally the government of the land helps the media to do the choosing: the authorities have their...

The article presents the political and economic impacts of various kinds of natural and man-made disasters and associated displacement of populations, and argues for a wider and more inclusive definition of disasters in the interest of human rights, social justice and equity for the victims of disasters. Legislation, Disasters and People Numerous disasters at national and international levels have caused governments to recognise the need for rapid and effective response to provide...

The Indian government has ordered hundreds of paramilitary troops into eastern parts of the country where Maoist rebels have increasingly been taking control. This year, 669 people have died in violent incidents involving the Maoists. October was a particularly humiliating month for the Indian police. First, members of the Communist Party of India [Maoist] captured an Inspector and beheaded him. Then, a police station was attacked and two policemen killed....

A DOZEN men, women and boys, some no older than 15, milled about their rough tents as twilight fell in a remote forest clearing. Some were in lungyis and T-shirts; others wore fatigues, with bolt-action Enfield rifles slung on their shoulders and bandoleers around their waists. Comrade Vijja, a burly man with a bottlebrush moustache, sat with some of his troops around a cooking fire, sipping sweetened tea. He sounded...