I got a call around midnight in the Delhi summer. It was Lingaram, the young Muria adivasi from Sameli village in Dantewada, then studying in Noida’s International Media Institute of India. Linga’s misfortunes never seem to end: first he was accused of helping the Maoists, then tortured in the police station toilet, forced to be a special police officer, then released thanks to a habeas corpus petition. In a few months,...

‘It is correct that... Kopa Kunjam tried to save me from the Naxalites,’ said Jhadi Nagesh in the sessions court of Bijapur, Bastar. Maoists kidnapped two men on June 2, 2009. One, Punem Hoonga, was killed the other, Jhadi Nagesh, was released. On December 10, Kunjam was arrested for the murder of Hoonga, who the Maoists killed. Nagesh, the man who was released unharmed by the Maoists, testified in court that...

The 2002 Gujarat riots victims gathered at Naroda Patiya and sent an open letter to Narendra Modi seeking justice. Here's the full text of the letter: Dear Narendrabhai Why do you have to undertake this Sadbhavna Mission by observing three days upvaas?? No other Chief Minister of the 26 States in India has to do such a prayaschit to earn sadbhavna! Have you finally realized after about a decade that all the...

WHEN ITANAGAR businessman and chairman of the Sango Lamte Foundation Payi Gyadi embarked on his crusade against dishonesty, he did not bargain for this. Four FIRs, one attempt to frame him by planting weapons in his car, and countless ‘offers’ to reach a ‘compromise or die’. His crime: exposing that the current Arunachal Pradesh Health Minister Atum Welly’s son and daughter had got government jobs based on fake certificates. It all...

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday made a quiet visit to Maval where three farmers were killed in police firing on August 9. Two hours after he left, the families of victims described the visit as a “show of sympathy” while the agitating farmers said he has rubbed salt on their wounds by not giving them a hearing. Rahul arrived in Maval around 10 am and went straight to the...