-PTI Darjeeling (WB), Aug. 27: In the conflict between forest guards and forest dwellers in West Bengal’s Doars and Terai regions, 13 tribals have died in firing by forest guards since 2007, according to the State Forest Department. While the Forest Department described those killed as belonging to the timber mafia, rights bodies claimed they were just poor and innocent tribals who merely entered the forest in search of firewood and forest...

-The Times of India India, dubbed 'the melting pot of cultural diversity', is also home to the world's 11th largest population of 'Internally Displaced People' (IDP). These people are forced to relocate fearing religious, ethnic or other persecution in conflict-induced situations. India and Turkey are the only 'stable' country in the list of 12 nations which have witnessed forced migration of a million or more. Others are either ravaged by ongoing...

-PTI Sasaram: Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today pulled up the Bihar government for slow implementation of central flagship schemes like MNREGA and IAY and cautioned that the naxal movement may intensify if adequate steps were not taken to provide basic infrastructure to the rural people. Expressing apparent dissatisfaction with no visible impact of central schemes on people's lives, the minister said that "much more needed to be done by the...

-The Telegraph Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today expressed surprise over husbands of women mukhiyas and women sarpanchs running the rural parts of the state, unlike elsewhere in the country. Ramesh was on a visit to Rohtas district to review bariou development schemes undertaken in areas that have suffered because of ther Maoist violence. During his meeting, he could not find any woman mukhiya or woman sarpanch with whom he could interact...

-NDTV Shiladitya Chowdhury, the farmer who was arrested for asking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a question at a public meeting at Belpahari on 8 August, has been released on bail today. Mr Chowdhury was briefly detained on August 8 after Ms Banerjee claimed he was a Maoist. Police arrested him On August 10 for allegedly disrupting the chief minister's public meeting. Ms Banerjee addressed a public meeting in West Midnapore, once...