In violation of Supreme Court directions, 28 persons are being kept in solitary confinement in various jails all over the country. Information under Right to Information (RTI) Act obtained by Navkiran Singh, a lawyer practising in Punjab and Haryana High Court, reveals that West Bengal has the maximum number of prisoners kept ‘illegally’ in solitary confinement. While West Bengal has 16 such prisoners, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have three each. As per...

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad todayflayed police lathicharge against the farmers during protestagainst inadequate land acquisition at Nabi Nagar in Bihar''sAurangabad district two weeks ago and equated the incidentwith ''Nandigram'' violence in West Bengal four years ago. Claiming one person was killed in police action atNabinagar, Prasad said "the Bihar government should put inplace a proper land acquisition policy to prevent places instate from becoming Nandigram". Official sources, however, had confirmed that 25farmers...

Despite its slackening industry, the common perception of West Bengal as a backward state has little substance when one looks at the facts. Most of us are conditioned to view economic development in terms of industrialisation. While industrialisation is essential for economic transformation, it is not as if economic growth is not possible without it. The sectoral structure of India's gross domestic product (GDP) and its slow transformation makes a good...

Over 500 people under the banner of All Adivasi Students' Association of Assam (Aasaa) staged a four-hour dharna in the Lastgate area of Dispur on Thursday seeking an immediate halt to illegal eviction in the Lungsung forest area of Kokrajhar district. Shouting slogans like "stop illegal eviction in Lungsung" and "give us justice", the protesters alleged that the Congress-led government in the state has deprived them of the basic needs....

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...