Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan today ordered a CBI investigation into last week’s murder of IPS officer Narendra Kumar, allegedly by mining mafia. Chauhan said he was responding to an appeal by Madhurani, the slain officer’s widow who is an IAS officer in the state, and not clamours from the Congress. The Opposition party has been demanding a probe by the agency and called a bandh today to protest the...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday announced to hand over the probe into the killing of IPS officer Narendra Singh to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Narendra Kumar was brutally crushed to death by a tractor allegedly by the 'mining mafia' in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh on March 8. The opposition Congress had stalled the proceedings of the House and forced an adjournment demanding a CBI probe into...

Closed mines and resultant unemployment are still stoking Naxalism in Saranda, a maiden jan adalat (public hearing) held 160km from the steel city insisted today, indicating that more needed to be done to make the much-touted central action plan for the red turf a long-lasting success. More than 1,000 villagers from the Maoist dens of Noamundi, Gua, Kiriburu and Barajamda among others, which fall in the mining belt of Saranda command...

In a state where mining mafia has become audacious enough to allegedly kill a young IPS officer, the mineral resources department does not even keep record of its minister’s periodic review of illegal mining, storage and transportation. This shocking state of affairs in the department has been laid bare by the department’s reply to a recent RTI application.   The RTI plea was filed in December 2011 with the mineral resources department...

A young IPS officer who stood in the path of a tractor-trolley carrying illegally mined stones after the driver ignored his calls to stop was crushed to death under the vehicle in Madhya Pradesh yesterday. The death of Narendra Kumar, 30, has blown the lid off entrenched syndicates that cart off natural resources after carving up the mineral-rich regions of the state among themselves with alleged patronage from players belonging to...