Victims have not forgotten the following brutal tragedies in the life of independent India, even if the State and political parties may pretend to have. 1984—Delhi: On October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for ‘Operation Bluestar’. For the next three days, as Doordarshan telecast the lying in state of her body, over 3000 Sikhs—men and boys—were burnt alive while policemen, politicians and...

-The Economic Times   The only worse thing for a government than a perception of it dragging its feet over fighting corruption is to be seen quailing at the prospect of assorted godmen and gurus launching campaigns over the issue. And the UPA regime attained that craven low with the spectacle of four very senior ministers and bureaucrats waiting at Delhi airport to greet multi-million dollar yoga empire founder Baba Ramdev...

What does it take to get the government to fight corruption? One answer could be: a medical facility with an air-conditioned Intensive Care Unit, a team of 60 doctors, a media centre, 1,300 toilets, seven large screens to pipe live action, television sets, and a storage facility of 100,000 litres of water. This is some of the infrastructure behind Baba Ramdev’s fast that starts on 4 June at New Delhi’s Ramlila grounds. Ramdev...

-The Hindu   Human rights activist Binayak Sen said here on Monday that there was no question of his being a Naxal sympathiser. “Neither am I a Naxal sympathiser nor [an] opposer of Naxals,” Dr. Sen told journalists at the Press Club. “I believe that violence, either of the state or the non-state actors, does not cure any problem,” he said. Launching a scathing attack on Salwa Judum, he said that it...

-PTI Activist Binayak Sen on Monday demanded repeal of sedition laws, saying they were being used to "suppress" the voice of the people. "Sedition laws are not benefiting free people in free Polity and they should be repealed. The law is being used to suppress the voice of the people," Sen, currently on bail after being convicted on charges of sedition by a Chhattisgarh court for his alleged links to Naxals,...