-The Indian Express In a complete U-turn on its stand taken before the Gujarat High Court, state government on Friday told the Nanavati-Mehta Commission that of the 47 documents sought by suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in connection with the 2002 riots, nine intelligence documents have been destroyed “in routine course”. This is in stark contrast to the recent statement by Advocate General on behalf of the government before the HC that...

-Outlook Mumbai: The CBI, probing January 2010 murder of RTI activist Satish Shetty, today conducted searches at the offices of IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited, a company which was recently in news over its links with BJP chief Nitin Gadkari. "Searches are being conducted at four premises of IRB in Pune," a senior CBI official said on condition of anonymity without disclosing details. A year before he was killed, Shetty had lodged a complaint...

-The Times of India Internationally acclaimed academician Noam Chomsky of Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the United States has warned that Koodankulam could be another Bhopal disaster in waiting. In a solidarity letter to the struggling people he said: "Nuclear energy is a very dangerous initiative, particularly in countries like India, which has had more than its share of industrial disasters, Bhopal being the most famous." "I would like to express my...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...

-The Hindu Sequence of attacks on “well-known business units” suggests violence was not spontaneous Last week’s violence in Faizabad district during the Durga Puja procession which left two persons dead, several injured and dozens of shops razed, was executed in a planned manner and the targets had been selected, according to a fact-finding team and accounts by victims and eyewitnesses. The fact-finding team of human rights organisation Rihai Manch said the sequence of...