Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

Several newspapers and TV channels, some of them among India’s biggest, have claimed credit for exposing the Adarsh society scam in which the who’s who of India’s defense and political establishment are involved. The scam exposes the nexus between bureaucrats, politicians and unscrupulous defense service officers. Obviously it wouldn’t be anyone’s ‘exclusive’ if so many newspapers and channels broke the news. Or else there would be one journalist who reported...

The Aadhaar or UID project has grave implications for every Indian. It will enable the government to profile every citizen and track their movements and transactions. There is no guarantee that intimate personal information -- pre-existing illnesses, romantic relationships etc -- won't be shared with other agencies, warns Praful Bidwai. An elaborate charade has begun with the rolling out of the first Aadhaar unique identity numbers in a tribal district of Maharashtra by...

The National Alliance of Peoples’ movement (NAPM), an organization of dozens of grassroots movements and civil society groups all over India, has expressed full solidarity with noted Gandhian Himanshu Kumar of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram demanding restoration of peace and just governance in Chhattisgarh. Himanshu Kumar has gone on an indefinite hunger strike at Dantewada in Chhattisgarh from Saturday December 26 amidst reports of government’s preparation to launch an all out...

BARSUR, India — At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government. “That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the...