Paradip, July 16: Things were back on the boil today in Posco project area. Tension mounted in the zone as at least eight protesters, mostly women, were injured following an alleged use of force by police at Polang village. Officials engaged in land acquisition process for the steel plant project were forced to retreat with project-related work left grounded today amidst stiff resistance from landlosers. The land acquisition process and ancillary...

Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption has a curious side-effect. It has turned the spotlight on India's lack of pre-legislative transparency. We may accept or dismiss team Anna's Jan Lokpal draft but his movement — and the subsequent build-up of hope and betrayal — has unwittingly exposed the systemic opaqueness in which our laws are conceived, written, debated and passed. The Lokpal Bill 2011 is one among 67-odd bills listed as...

The Indian media have grown rapidly in scale, reach, influence, and revenues. But all stakeholders must realise that the ethical underpinning of professional journalism in the country has weakened and that the corrosion of public life in our country has impacted journalism. So what needs to be done? We have been witness in recent years to rapid, and unprecedented, changes in our society, economy, and polity. These have also transformed the...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...

Some of that legendary ‘Banarasi pan' could have begun its journey from Gujjari Mohanty's vineyard in Govindpur, Orissa. “I've sold our leaves in Benares [Varanasi] myself,” says her son Sanatan. As have many of their neighbours. “Our leaves are high-quality and greatly valued.” The betel leaf, though, is not just about pan. It is also valued for medicinal qualities as a digestive, for the antiseptic nature of its oil, and...