-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-The Hindu Six years after it was set up to challenge mainstream media discourse, kafila.org has not only provided an alternative space for critical writing, but also offered a radical model of editor-less, ad-free, voluntary journalism with a zero marketing budget Aditya Nigam, an academic and activist on the left, had long been frustrated with the nature of the Indian media. In 2002, soon after the Gujarat ‘massacres', he was a part of...

-The Times of India MENDHARI (GADCHIROLI): The picturesque little hamlet of Mendhari, around 90-km from Gadchiroli town, was considered by the Naxalites as a safe haven. The tranquillity here had remained undisputed until Sunday when, for the first time, the villagers witnessed a lopsided bloodbath in which six women rebels were killed in Police firing. The villagers, who claimed to have been thrashed by the C-60 commandos too, told TOI that four...

-The Indian Express Mumbai: Residents of Mumbra, a suburb northeast of Mumbai and known to many as the place where Ishrat Jahan lived, suffer from a feeling of insecurity and a perception of discrimination, according to a study commissioned by the Maharashtra government's minority development department. The preliminary findings of the 2011 study, conducted by Dr Ranu Jain of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, were presented to the government Friday. The study,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Delhi now has the dubious distinction of being home to the most "honeymoon wives" - women abandoned by NRI husbands - in the country. The latest annual report of the NRI cell of the National Commission for Women (NCW) reveals that Delhi registered 59 such cases in 2012-13. Punjab, which has for years grappled with the problem of young brides abandoned within days or weeks of marriage, registered...