The Orissa government on Saturday deferred land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco till Monday, as pressure mounted on it for withdrawal of armed policemen from three gram panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district. The authorities announced the postponement owing to bad weather, hours before social activist Swami Agnivesh visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitating villagers who have formed a human barricade at the entry point to their village, with...

This paper was presented at the Regional Workshop on War on Terror and Asian Democracy 17 May 2011, Kim Dae-Jung Convention Centre, South Korea organised by Solidarity for Democratization Movement in Asia (SDMA) Introduction In the discourse on terrorism and counter terrorism, September 11 stands as a watershed because of the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. Government of India (GoI) also took full advantage of the ‘War on Terror’...

On June 12, Ravi Shankar Ratnam helped Ram Krishna Yadav resume eating after Yadav had fasted for a week. This wouldn’t have made the headlines of every Indian newspaper the next morning if it hadn’t been for the fact that both men had achieved a state of demi-divinity through the tried-and-tested process of Hindu name-inflation. Ram Krishna Yadav became Swami Ramdev when he took sanyas and after his extraordinary success...

The Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti on Tuesday contested Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's claim that no force was being used to acquire land for the proposed steel project of Posco as his government was for peaceful industrialisation. “The Chief Minister is telling lies,” said Prashant Paikray, spokesperson of the Samiti, which has been strongly opposing establishment of the mega steel plant that would affect the lives and livelihoods of thousands of...

-The Hindustan Times   Female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking make India the world's 4th most dangerous country for women, with Afghanistan's violence and poverty taking it to the top spot, followed by Congo due to horrific levels of rape, a Thomson Reuters Foundation expert poll said on Wednesday. Pakistan and Somalia ranked third and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination...