For the 6,000 people marching to Mumbai from the forest villages of Jalgaon and Nandurbar demanding their rights over forest land, there is some hope. Maharashtra Minister of State for Tribal Development Rajendra Gavit visited the protesters in Kasara taluka near Nashik on Friday and agreed to concede some of the demands raised by the Adivasis. Mr. Gavit went as a representative of Chief Minsiter Prithviraj Chavan, who on Thursday promised...

In a move likely to raise the hackles of states, the Union Ministry of Rural Development has decided that all criminal offences in the implementation of the NREGA would in future be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), whenever the state government fails to take satisfactory action. In a circular sent to all states on Thursday, the ministry said that in cases of system failures or non-criminal lapses, a...

Let Aruna die? No, with her alive, there’s more power, media attention. Hence, the politics of mercy in medicine. Lucknow airport. Late ’90s. Khushwant Singh and I are waiting for our flights, we talk about Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee mentioning my book Once Was Bombay in a speech on collapsing cities. He suddenly asks, “You wrote that book on the woman who neither lives nor dies, you still see her?” I...

India’s Supreme Court has questioned clearances to industries on the basis of environment impact assessments (EIAs) carried out by private consultants in the pay of project proponents. A special bench of the court led by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, that is hearing a petition challenging approvals granted to the French company Lafarge to mine limestone, likened the practice to "paying the piper to call the tune." Kapadia’s bench noted that every report...

Would you rather buy a necessity like kerosene or food grains at a subsidy or receive an equivalent amount of cash instead? Would you prefer that the government decides your consumption pattern rather than figuring out on your own how to spend your income? One of the “big ticket” reform items in the budget was the announcement that subsidies on kerosene, fertilizers and Liquefied Petroleum Gas and delivery through the Public...