Two policemen were among three persons killed and District Magistrate Deepak Agarwal got a bullet injury in fierce clashes that broke out in Greater Noida on Saturday between security personnel and agitating farmers holding three roadways employees hostage. Scores of people including an SSP were also injured when the agitation by the farmers demanding better compensation for their acquired land turned violent in Bhatta Parsaul village in Gautam Buddha Nagar district,...

Indian human rights activist Binayak Sen has accused the government of misusing the country's sedition laws "to silence voices of dissent". In an interview with the BBC, he said that the laws were an outdated relic from the country's colonial past. Dr Sen was freed from jail in the state of Chhattisgarh earlier this month. He had been sentenced to life in prison in December for helping Maoist rebels. The government is reportedly...

It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...

After forming syndicates, the liquor mafia in Nizamabad district is now targeting young workers of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS) to rake in more moolah. Towards this end, the powerful mafia succeeded by roping in village development committees (VDCs) to help them open more belt shops in villages. Though it was illegal, a majority of these belt shops are being run in residential colonies, slum areas and...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....