When all failed, a police lathicharge did the trick. Farmers of Akaltara village were protesting against land acquisition for a month, but only after the police beat them up and arrested 78 men on a cold January evening, that things heated up. Opposition leaders rushed to the site and the government was forced to react. From Rs 8 lakh, compensation rates were hiked to Rs 17 lakh per acre. The...
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UPA’s legacy: jobless growth by Anil Padmanabhan
Only 400,000 jobs a year were generated during UPA-1, compared with 12 million annually during the NDA’s tenure Key economic data released by the government on Friday shows that the first stint of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) generated a mere 400,000 jobs a year, compared with 12 million jobs annually during the tenure of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). During the period 2004-05 to...
More »Human Smears by Madhavi Tata
Poor Andhra villagers now victims of clinical drug trials No Drug Resistance * 35 women, some men from Guntur district put throughclinical trials of a breast cancer drug. They later complain of joint pains, nausea and chest pains. * Biotech industry in Andhra is worth about Rs 455 crore * Touts operating on behalf of pharma companies get people from the poorer districts to Hyderabad for the tests *** Some 35 women...
More »Consult Jarawas on their future, NAC tells Ministry by Smita Gupta
The National Advisory Council (NAC) on Wednesday asked the tribal Affairs Ministry to consult the Jarawas, a primitive tribal group in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands who are threatened with extinction, before drafting a policy on their future — whether they should continue to live in their pristine habitat, in splendid isolation, or be allowed to mingle with the local population, the Council sources toldThe Hindu. This follows concern in the...
More »Is there a ban on reporting bad news from India? by Andrew Buncombe
It was the writer and activist Arundhati Roy who set foreign journalists in India busily chattering recently. In an interview with Stephen Moss in the Guardian, Ms Roy was discussing the Maoist and Adavasi “resistance” to encroachment on tribal lands. Mr Moss, asked her why, “we in the West don’t hear about these mini-wars?”. Ms Roy replied: “I have been told quite openly by several correspondents of international newspapers, that...
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