-The Economic Times   The government's version of the Lokpal Bill gets most things right. The entire executive, represented by its senior layers, including the Prime Minister, comes under its purview. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which deals with all kinds of crime and not just corruption, is rightly kept outside the proposed Lokpal's administrative control but will investigate cases referred to it by the Lokpal. Nor is there any attempt to...

-The Times of India   Armed tribals on Wednesday blocked the Bhanjanagar-Dasaplla road at Gayaganda in Ganjam district in protest against the arrest of 29 tribals from Ambajahari within Tarsingi forest range. Forest personnel raided the reserve forest and arrested these people for constructing their house by encroaching upon forest land and chopping trees, divisional forest officer, Ghumusar (South) B B Behera said. Behera said the encroachers tried to attack the forest personnel...

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu , October 14, 2011), observed candidly: “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre.” There lay the main cause of the festering sore of naxalism, often characterised as left-wing...

Last week's clash near Posco's project site in Odisha is brewing trouble for the South Korean steelmaker and the state government, with legislators demanding a probe into why the main accused in the clash has not been arrested. State legislators on Monday demanded the immediate arrest of Bapi Sarkhel, a Paradip-based contractor alleged to have masterminded Wednesday's clash, which left one dead and 25 injured. "When the police arrested local...

“Reported panic and bandhs are all creations of Kerala government” Tamil Nadu on Friday refuted Kerala's allegation before the Empowered Committee, headed by the former Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, that the Mullaperiyar Dam was not safe if the water level was maintained at 136 ft. and that it should be reduced to 120 ft. In its response to Kerala's affidavit filed before the committee on Thursday, the State reiterated that...