A war of words has broken out between the state government on the one hand and Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) on the other over processing land ownership claims of tribals as per provisions of the Forests Rights Act, 2006. In a report, a committee comprising officials from the two union ministries said lower-rung officials in the state have no clear understanding of...

If home minister P Chidambaram’s recent letter to West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is any indication, it has taken the Union home ministry seven years to realise that arming civilians to fight Naxalites is a bad idea. How much longer will it take for them to realise that the current paramilitary-based approach in Chhattisgarh is similarly bound to fail? From 2003 onwards, the home ministry has followed a policy of...

Bauxite Mining of the sacred hill of Adivasis in Lanjigarh, Kalahandi district, Orissa, had been stopped by a decision of the India Ministry for Environment and Forest (MoE&F) on August 24th, 2010. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had constituted an enquiry panel – which in its report recommends that bauxite mining in Niyamgiri hills should not be allowed for mining unless the local Adivasi communities give their consent. According to this report,...

There has been a gross simplification of the issues involved in the exposures in the Radia tapes on the lack of integrity among mediapersons. In order to understand how exactly journalists really function it is necessary to understand the overall context in which they operate and clarify some of the persistent myths about what the profession is all about. Four myths in particular need to be dissected: That it enjoins...

The CPI(M) on Wednesday said the life sentence awarded to rights activist Binayak Sen, convicted by a court in Raipur for sedition, was “a grave miscarriage of justice”. “The evidence presented at the trial by the prosecution was so flimsy and concocted that it is surprising that such a judicial verdict has been given,” party general secretary Prakash Karat said. He said the verdict also pointed to the dangers of having...