Our country is poised at a dangerous place right now for many reasons. There are all kinds of battles for supremacy. There are real resistances, there are theatrical and false resistances, revolutions from the top, revolutions from the bottom. And sometimes all of this is interpreted by an increasingly hysterical media which doesn't allow space for reflection, for thought, that will only bombard, control the public imagination.   At times like this,...

In Rajasthan’s Neem ka Thana region, the echoes of mining explosives are like clockwork, on the hour every hour. For some time now, another feature has become almost routine here: houses, left unsteady by the explosions, propped up by wooden poles or bricks. Tired of no recourse and continued government harassment, villages have begun a movement to stop illegal mining, primarily led by ex-army servicemen. It began on March 1 this year...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants it to be the new Singapore. State officials call it Urjanchal, land of energy. For sociologist Sakarama Somayaji, the enduring image from India’s emerging energy wonderland in Singrauli is the women who sell baskets of stones on the roadside. Individually or in groups, the women break stones, and sell them to passing trucks for R80-R90 a basket, a day’s labour. The women are...

The poor man’s fuel, kerosene — paid for by state subsidy — is diverted to adulterating diesel mostly for truckers. And the industry is estimated to be worth half the sum the government spends on employment for the rural poor every year. Welcome to the Great Indian Kerosene Racket, which hit a new high this week when additional collector Yashwant Sonawane of Maharashtra’s Nashik district lost his life in a...

The opening and closing ceremonies received wide acclaim but left many citizens like me a bit terrified and confused. Now that the terms of inquiry into the conduct of the Commonwealth Games have been extended, let us hope that the process of probe will be more open than was decision-making for the CWG. Let us also hope that the review will cover the opening and closing ceremonies as well, both in...