The floodgates have opened on a movie ominously titled DAM999, which some political parties in Tamil Nadu feel is toeing the line of neighbouring Kerala in a dispute between the states. A section of Tamil Nadu politicians feels the movie, produced and directed by a Malayali businessman, relates to the controversy around the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar dam in central Kerala. Tamil Nadu holds the lease rights to the dam for 999 years...

India's Maoists have spread north-east, gaining a foothold in the strategically located states bordering China and Burma, officials and analysts say. The Maoists are filling the void created by dwindling ethnic insurgent groups like the Ulfa, an Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) report says. One key Assam official told the BBC that boys thought to have gone south for jobs had instead joined the rebels. The Maoists have become squeezed in their traditional...

Maoist movement in the country has suffered a massive blow with the killing of Mallojula Koteshwara Rao, popularly known as Kishenji, in West Bengal. The biggest credit for this 57-year-old Maoist leader is the building of Lalgarh movement in West Bengal, which is now billed as the second Naxalbari in India. One of the first generation founding leaders of erstwhile CPI-ML People's War (PW) in Andhra Pradesh, Kishenji left an indelible...

-The Economic Times   With the entry of foreign supermarket players, farMers across India's six lakh villages stand to gain from greater market access, higher profits, better technology and direct linkage with consuMers.  "Direct purchase from farms has hugely benefited small farMers like us who were not getting good returns by selling in the local mandi," said Abdul Majid, from Malerkotla in Punjab, who has been selling vegetables from his one-acre farm to...

-The Indian Express Hitler Didi, Zee TV’s new show about a serious-minded young woman, is entirely innocent of world history — but that did not deter the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based organisation that fights anti-Semitism everywhere. “The name Hitler doesn’t belong in a soap opera, and we think the producers of this programme have made a terrible error in judgement that can only be remedied with a title change,” said an...