-The Hindu On May 5 this year, Tarun Sehrawat, a photographer with Tehelka, sent me a link to his most recent photo-essay on Abujmard, a Maoist-controlled area in Chhattisgarh. Tarun and I met on assignment in Dantewada in summer 2010 and had stayed in touch. A month-and-half later, last Friday, I attended his funeral after a fever he contracted in Abujmard proved fatal. Tarun died of cerebral malaria; he was 22. I came...

-The Hindu   Encouraging signs of girls trying to break shackles of outdated customs in Rajasthan Depicting encouraging signals of girls trying to break the shackles of outdated customs, two instances of young women repudiating their childhood marriages in defiance of diktats of the caste elders have come up in Rajasthan. In both the cases, the community members have allegedly threatened the girls' families. Twenty-year-old Rekha Kumari, a resident of Peepar in Jodhpur district,...

John Vidal, who was in Rio for the '92 Earth summit, looks back at that momentous event, and how the 2012 version compares Helicopters thundered up and down the chic Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Tanks guarded the bridges and tunnels. The favelas were in lockdown, schools closed and supermarkets stood empty. Unexpectedly, George H W Bush, the 41st US president, flush with success at the collapse of communism, had arrived in...

-The Hindu   A doctor-couple from Beed, who had been on the run after they were found to have been carrying out illegal abortions and sex-determination tests, surrendered before the district police on Sunday. On Monday, a local court in Beed remanded them in police custody till June 30. Sudam Munde and his wife, Saraswati Munde, have been absconding since the end of last month. A sting operation revealed that their clinic flouted...

-The Hindu The West Bengal Human Rights Commission has sought a report from the Superintendent of Police, Paschim Medinipur district, on allegations of torture of a young man who was handcuffed to his hospital bed after he allegedly attempted suicide while in custody, officials of the Commission said on Monday. The youth is suspected to be involved in Maoist activities. “A report may be called from the SP Paschim Medinipur within four...