IF YOU walked down the streets of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi between 3-5 August, you would see what TV cameras aren’t putting out on primetime news. Thousands of farmers from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh to Rohtak in Haryana. On protest. Against the systematic grabbing of their land by various state governments across the political spectrum. On one side of the road, on large green carpets, are about 3,000 farmers,...

DESPITE WHAT our reel-life heroes have shown us, perhaps it’s only possible to fight one villain at a time. Still, in his last few days on the job, Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde tried to battle two evils, with two reports that presented damning evidence of corruption in the BJP government. The first report, on illegal mining, had enough firepower to systematically dig holes in the state government. The second report,...

After the brutal murder of Azad, is there any hope for well-meaning routine calls for “dialogue” and “peace talks”? What can the "civil society" do as a serious, real intervention? It is reported that the decades-old talks with Naga insurgent groups has made some progress recently (See “Differences ‘narrowed’,” Times of India, July 19, 2011). One reason why talks have a chance in these cases is that separatism comes in...

The recent estimates of employment and unemployment from the 66th round (2009-10) of the National Sample Survey (NSS) belie any hopes that the growth of the Indian economy between 2004-05 and 2009-10 has been inclusive. Employment has expanded by only a million jobs during this period. Not only is this lowest ever growth recorded in any such period, the fact that it occurred during the period of highest growth in...

Kerala has not been very successful in the past to consistently attract big-ticket investments . The absence of strategic investments in key sectors has always been a hurdle in the state's path to economic prosperity. The new chief ministerOommen Chandy, known for speedy decision-making , wants to change this scenario. He has already been able to swing public opinion in his favour by addressing long-pending issues such as the Smart...