Land acquisition and involuntary displacement have been the fountainhead of enormous destitution of millions of invisible people since Independence. Generations of those sacrificed for ‘development’ are farmers and farm workers, and many are fragile tribal people and forest gatherers. By coercive displacement and dispossession, governments pauperise its poorest people, and its food-growers, so that the ‘nation’ can prosper and grow. Rage at persisting State injustice of coercive displacement frequently spills onto...

The Posco project has turned into a political hot potato with the two main Opposition parties trying to extract as much out of it as possible, hoping the Rs 51000 crore project turns into another Singur. At a time when Naveen Patnaik government finds itself embroiled in a number of unsavoury controversies, including horse trading during the Rajya Sabha elections, the Congress and the BJP are looking to deliver the coup...

Madhya Pradesh is betting Cash incentives will curb population growth and improve the ‘life cycle’ of the girl child, but experts question the efficacy of such policies in addressing deep-rooted social prejudices Visitors trudging down the dusty village road are greeted by a giant billboard featuring a smiling Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, hugging two young girls. The tagline in Hindi reads: Gaon ki beti, kisse chhoti...

-The Hindu   Prolonged aerial spraying Endosulfan in the State-owned Cashew estates claimed two more lives in the district. Silverster Manera, 45, a resident of Enamkudal near Badiyadukka, and T.K. Mani, 69, of Kallar village near Rajapuram, who had been undergoing treatment for diseases suspected to have been caused by the pesticide, died on Thursday, sources said. Family members of Mandera lamented that the patient did not get adequate medical treatment . ...

The government is returning to a 1970s mentality. This mentality used a presumptive distrust of citizens as an excuse for enhancing state power. It sought accountability, not through intelligently designed transparency norms, but greater discretionary power in state officials. And finally, it sought to curb citizens’ freedoms, not by directly assaulting them, but by embedding them in a structure of regulation that deters free expression. This mentality connects three recent sets...