Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...

Dantewada District Collector R. Prasanna has announced a probe into allegations of the police and paramilitary forces burning homes, molesting three women and killing at least three men in an operation early this month. On Wednesday, The Hindu and Rajasthan Patrika carried news reports in which eyewitnesses accused Chhattisgarh's Koya commandos (an armed tribal police corps) and the Central Reserve Police Force of burning over 300 homes and granaries, sexually assaulting...

Three women assaulted, three men killed, hundreds rendered homeless in course of five-day operation The operation began in the early hours of March 11 when about 350 heavily armed troopers marched into the forests of Dantewada. They returned to their barracks five days later, with three villages aflame, about 300 homes and granaries incinerated, three villagers and three security personnel dead, and three women sexually assaulted, the victims and several...

This article explores the issue of dalits’ inclusion in the media industry. It argues that under-representation of dalits in Indian media leads to an exclusion of news on dalits. [This was presented in the “National Conference on Ethical Issues and Indian Media” held on 26 and 27 November 2010 and in Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu.] [J Balasubramaniam (balumids@gmail.com) is with the Department of Journalism and Science Communication, Madurai Kamaraj University.] The basis...

Soon after he exposed how bricks were bought for six times their value for roads that were never built in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Amarnath Pandey was shot near his home. The bullet, which he believes was fired by contractors who were benefiting from the brick scam, clipped his ear and grazed his skull, leaving him in hospital for weeks. Pandey, 56, a doctor from Robertsganj, a sleepy city...