In the year that has gone by since cyclone Aila devastated the Sunderbans, livelihood opportunities have dried up for the inhabitants of the region. The situation has arisen from a failed crops, dwindling fish catches and absence of enterprise and resulted in large scale emigration from the islands. Daily-wagers, who depended on finding work as agricultural labour, are the worst hit. Vast stretches of croplands have been rendered infertile after they remained...

INSIDE his hovel of branches and rags, a grizzled pauper called Badshah Kale keeps a precious object. It is a note, scrawled by a policeman and framed by Mr Kale, proclaiming that he “is not a thief”. For members of his Pardhi tribe, who are among some 60m Indians considered criminal by tradition, this is treasure. Squatting beside Mr Kale, on a turd-strewn wasteland outside Ashti, a village in India’s western...

So, Shashi Tharoor has gone. Lalit Modi may follow. Or not.   Cricket’s great jamboree may be cleaned up. Or not.   Does it matter so much?   The Indian Premier League (IPL) brouhaha could not have come at a worse time. India was, finally, if reluctantly, starting to focus on long-festering-but-urgent issues that prevent this country from being a just, equitable democracy. As Tharoor and Modi self-destructed, the circus around them diverted all...

Violence in West Bengal’s western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The Maoists have found common cause with the TMC, a breakaway from the Congress Party in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and Evita Peron, leads the TMC. Backed...

Climate change is forcing humans and tigers in the Sunderbans delta of eastern India into closer contact - and attacks on people are on the rise. The BBC's Chris Morris reports. They are magnificent, but deadly. Rarely seen, hidden in the jungles. But now the Royal Bengal tigers which roam through the vast mangrove forests at the mouth of the river Ganges are coming into closer contact, and conflict, with humans....