May 21 to be observed as ‘protest day' across Orissa  “Naveen Patnaik compromising people's interests for land acquisition” Public meeting to be held at Balitutha to express solidarity with villagers BHUBANESWAR: Several Opposition parties and mass organisations of Orissa on Sunday condemned the police action against villagers opposing the Posco-India's steel project in Jagatsinghpur district. They also warned the Biju Janata Dal government against using police force on innocent people to acquire...

A businessman I know was approached by representatives of a leading Indian national newspaper and offered a deal: Give us a stake in your company, and we’ll give you advertising space and favorable editorial coverage. A publisher told me that she received a similar proposition: Pay us, and we’ll interview your authors and write features about them. Sushma Swaraj, the parliamentary leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has said that...

It explicitly names newspapers and channels — including some of the biggest groups in the country — seen as having indulged in the “paid news” practice. The report traces the emergence of the paid news phenomenon over years and phases Seeks a pro-active role from the Election Commission in initiating action against offenders “The phenomenon of ‘paid news' goes beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media companies. It has become pervasive,...

Not a quota within quota but a commitment to social justice and a proactive offer to field women from the subaltern strata. That is the way to silence the opponents of the Bill.  Fourteen years and one small victory later, the Women's Reservation Bill has again begun to look iffy. In all this time, a lot many things could have been done independent of the fate of the Bill. Those in...

YELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament’s upper house on March 8th and tore at the document, containing the women’s reservation bill, he was reading from. Yet the bill passed the next day, with the two-thirds majority needed to change India’s constitution. With broad political support, including from the Congress party that leads India’s coalition government and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the bill...