-Down to Earth Industrial houses use tribals as fronts to amass tribal land in Chhattisgarh Ram Singh’s neighbours tease him by calling him Crorepati Singh. The 40-year-old Gond tribal from Parsada village in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh has hardly any landholding and depends on the government’s employment guarantee schemes to feed his family. But according to official documents, Singh has recently purchased land worth Rs 1.5 crore from a dozen of tribals...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: If you wish to see, possess or deposit papers related to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, then here is good news for you. A library of RTI documents, touted as Asia's first, was inaugurated at Dwarka Das Library, Lala Lajpat Rai Bhawan on Friday. The library has been formed by Servants of People's Society in association with the Citizens' Voice and RTI Users' Association. Interestingly, it...

Desired outcomes can be reached through a series of ‘imperfect’ small initiatives What is to be done? How can we untie the Gordian knot that has so entangled the political economy of petroleum product prices? This is the question that now exercises our most experienced politicians and our ablest economists. Most well informed people know that a country that imports 80 per cent of its oil requirements cannot de-link itself from the...

Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is the foremost problem of Orissa and the most daunting challenge for CM Naveen Patnaik, whose 12-year tenure has witnessed a rapid rise in intensity and spread of Maoist insurgency in the state.  Twentyfour of the 30 districts are now affected. Orissa has become a refuge for Maoist cadres who freely migrate to neighbouring regions.  In many of the troubled territories, especially in south-western parts of the state,...

-The Telegraph The special judge, Assam, today directed police to file chargesheets against 37 public servants facing corruption charges within a month. These cases were registered in 16 police stations spread across seven districts of the state. Special judge Md Mazed Ali passed the order based on reports filed by superintendents of police of all the 26 districts, following the court’s directive, on corruption cases against public servants. Of the 26 districts, corruption...