River Brahmaputra has eaten more than half of Asia's largest riverine island Majuli over the last 60 years. With land disappearing, there is progressive loss of the traditional means of livelihood of its people, leading to their displacement. Some lately are migrating even as far away as Andhra Pradesh, finds out Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty after a visit. Farmer Sridhar Bora stops mid-way as he brings down his axe on a tree...

At the peak of Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi last year, some of his former aides in Maharashtra had cautioned that he should not get carried away by the hype. Last week, at Mumbai’s thinly populated MMRDA Grounds where his latest agitation flopped, there were a few lessons for Hazare and his team. One being: never take people for granted. Some of Hazare’s former associates suggest that the craze that the Lokpal...

To dispose of pending Right To Information (RTI) appeals, state information commissioner Vijay Kuvalekar will hold Special Appeal Disposal Programme at Ramnath Anandilal Podar Medical College (Ayurved) in Worli on January 4, 5 and 6. Till November 30, more than 19,000 appeals were pending with the state information commission office. Almost 2,200-2,500 new appeals are filed in the state every month. “As part of this programme, the appellant, public information officer (PIO)...

-The Deccan Chronicle Henceforth if any government agency denies information under Right to Information Act (RTI), applicants need not wait for years for the intervention of the state information commission. Instead they can approach the district consumer disputes redressal forum. In a land mark judgment, II additional district consumer disputes redressal forum, of the city of Seshadripu ram has ruled that RTI applicants are also consumers and it is the responsibility...

Indian citizens won’t be shielded from prying by government agencies if the Union home ministry gets its way with the proposed privacy law. The ministry is insisting that intelligence and law enforcement agencies be kept out of the purview of the proposed Act, and allowed to continue monitoring the activities and carry out electronic surveillance of citizens, officials familiar with the situation said. The department of personnel and training (DoPT), which is...