-The Times of India SRINAGAR: With the second killing of a sarpanch in a fortnight on Sunday by terrorists, the print media in the Valley, and particularly Urdu newspapers, published scores of advertisements from rattled panchayat chiefs on Tuesday announcing their resignations, in response to militants threats to quit or face the consequences. There were more than 50 such advertisements in Urdu newspapers with panchayat chiefs displaying their resignations. However, deputy commissioner...

-The Telegraph A one-member committee formed to fix responsibility on individuals for “derogatory” political cartoons in some NCERT school textbooks has refused to blame anyone, highly placed sources have told The Telegraph. The committee, set up by the human resource development ministry under its former secretary B.S. Baswan, has found that officials and experts had followed set guidelines and procedure in preparing these books and had no “ill intentions”. “It said the books...

-The Hindustan Times In response to the widespread protests and the nation-wide hartal last Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on Friday and tried to explain why these decisions had become inevitable. The thrust of his argument was, “We need a revival in investor confidence, domestically and globally.” For this, the current high fiscal deficit must be contained and, hence, the hike in the prices of diesel and cap on...

-Frontline Reinstatement of the fundamental right to property in the Constitution will on its own do little to protect the interests of poor peasants and traditional communities.  The Indian Constitution adopted in 1950 guaranteed a set of fundamental rights that cannot be abridged by Central or State laws. One of these fundamental rights was the right to property enshrined in Articles 19(1)(f) and 31. Article 19(1)(f) guaranteed to all citizens the right...

-Frontline Members of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, treated as criminal tribes by the colonial rulers, have no place to call their own and no land, no rights, and no support from the government.  Emaciated, eyes sunken deep into sockets, skin hanging loose, almost gasping for breath, Indro Devi and Sarvnath, a couple in their eighties, lie on polythene sheets in an 8×10 square-foot tent made of rags, by a stinking nullah...