Gail Omvedt, an America-born Indian, is a social anthropologist trained in the radical academic setting of the University of California during the angry 1960s and the tumultuous 1970s. Her doctoral thesis on the “Non-Brahman movement in western India, 1873-1920” set the stage for her engagement with the subcontinent. Today, first-rate professionals are making a beeline for the West, but in Omvedt we have an instance of the ‘reverse flow' happening some...

-BBC   Police in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have registered cases against 16 police officers nearly six months after they were accused of rape. The personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) are accused of committing the crimes during protests by farmers in Bhatta-Parsaul villages. Villagers had clashed with the police in May while protesting against the government acquisition of their land. Farmers said they were being forced to give up land...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on Wednesday introduced the politically crucial land acquisition Bill in the Lok Sabha, less than two months after the ministry of rural development began drafting it. The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, aims to address rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) by providing safeguards for both landowners and livelihood losers while clearly defining the “public purpose” for which land can be acquired...

Even as the Opposition parties' allegations of financial bungling in implementation of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in Uttar Pradesh have pushed the Bahujan Samaj Party regime on the back foot, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has warned that direct transfer of funds from the Central Government to the State's implementing agencies is “fraught with the risk of their improper utilisation by these agencies”. The CAG report...

Nandkumar Naitam is relieved after a month of “torturous” anxiety. “I thought it over again and again,” the 20-year-old tribal youth says. “I thought that if I couldn’t get a rifle, I’d pick up my traditional weapon, the bow-and-arrow.” It was a desperation that Nandu, as he is fondly called, shared with his 5,000-odd fellow special police officers (SPOs), who till a month ago formed the Chhattisgarh government’s frontline against the Maoists...