A Vidarbha farm widow who gained fame after appearing on a special episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati last month has written to Sonia Gandhi and threatened suicide. Aparna Malikar, 27, says she has asked Sonia to rein in her brother-in-law Raghunath, an NCP-turned Congress leader, whom she accuses of harassing her and her parents so that “I give up my claim on (my) farmland and house”. In the three-page letter, written in...
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Reversing reforms? by Malini Bhattacharya
The beneficiaries of the land reforms in West Bengal get pushed out of their land under the new regime. MOGHAI MUNDA is dead. No one is there to mourn him but his distraught parents and his young wife who seems to have lost her power of speech. But it is a significant death, even if it is ignored by the ubiquitous media and, therefore, by the world at large. Like the...
More »Stopping the loot
-The Hindu A robust new law to regulate mining in India is overdue. The proposed Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2011 is the central government's response to a full-blown crisis in the sector. There are several serious issues that the legislation promises to address, such as sharing of profits with project-affected people, environmental sustainability, competitive bidding to improve returns to States, and transparency in grant of permits. A major...
More »Cost of mining: dry lakes, barren fields across a state once green by Shalini Nair
While imposing a ban on mining in Karnataka’s Bellary district in July this year, the Supreme Court had reasoned that the massive environmental damage caused by excessive mining impinges on the constitutional right to life. In neighbouring Goa, the latest state rocked by a mining scandal, the destruction could be on an even larger scale if one compares mining figures and relates these to the areas of the large district and...
More »Upper caste members attack Dalits in Periyapatna
-IBN Dalits were attacked by upper caste people at Mutthur village in Periyapatna taluk on Wednesday night. It is said that on Wednesday, a group of Dalit youths and Shivanna, an upper caste person entered into a heatred exchange. Following by this, the upper caste people attacked Dalits. Accepting the complaint filed by one M J Deepak, Periyapatna police have Arrested 7 persons on charges of comitting atrocity on dalits. As a...
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