-Eastern Panorama   It’s been almost two months since a 6.9 magnitude earthquake left the Himalayan state of Sikkim devastated. Nine families of Ralak village in Tingchim Mangshilla Gram Panchayat in the North District of Sikkim are still living in make shift relief camps with the mothers cuddling their children under blankets to give them comfort and warmth in the cold November nights. As snow has already covered the mountains visible from...

On September 18, Bimola Rai’s world was reduced to rubble. A student of Class III in Bop village in Chungthang block of North District in Sikkim, a Himalayan border state, she was left traumatized when a devastating earthquake of 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale, flattened her home and school building, located at an altitude of 5,500 feet. Today, Bimola joins 26 other children of her village to walk the four...

Chhotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act-1908 came into existence to safeguard rights of the tribals, especially on their traditional landholdings. It is not very clear how much the Act has been successful in assuring the rights to the traditional dwellers, though it is an open secret that it has denied them access to bank credits, thus hampering them financially. Latest figures suggest that bank loans to Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste have moved...

In Chhattisgarh, Hindutva manifests itself in the form of attacks on Christians; in Uttarakhand it does so in the form of promoting Sanskrit. IN Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindutva agenda may not be strident, but the Sangh Parivar orientation is unmistakable in various government policies and programmes. While in Uttarakhand the party places much emphasis on gau mata (bovine goddess) and the teaching of...

The power of judicial review envelopes natural resource distribution The tsunami created by the 2G spectrum judgments of the the Supreme Court last week has almost mopped up the ripples they made in the legal sphere. However, they deserve respectful consideration for their discussion on two hot issues that have been agitating public mind in recent years. The first is the nature and ownership of natural resources, like air waves and spectrum,...