“Poor farmers could not fathom why they were beaten up, their houses set afire” Starting from where he left off in Bhatta-Parsaul and emboldened by the success of the Congress campaign against the Mayawati government on the land acquisition issue, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said, “there will be a Bhatta-Parsaul in every village,” to ensure the government's downfall. “The Congress will fight the government at the ground zero...

Gary Singh’s abduction ordeal illustrates the dangers faced by those who rely on smugglers to make their way overseas One day in 2006, 18-year-old Gubachan “Gary” Singh, an illegal immigrant in Manila, Philippines, was on his way to work when he was approached by four stocky Filipinos. One pulled out a gun, pressing the barrel into the small of his back, while another blindfolded him and shoved him into a van....

The Arjun Munda government’s headlong drive to distribute new ration cards among 50 lakh families across the state is turning out to be an organised chaos, with acute crunch of application forms and clueless public representatives fielded for the job. While a three-day, statewide camp kicked off today to arm every family in rural and urban pockets with ration cards that entitle them to subsidised foodgrain, kerosene, et al, inadequate number...

It is now certain that the higher judiciary wouldn’t be under the purview of the proposed Lokpal. Consensus to this effect emerged at a roundtable held here in which members of the civil society, including four non-government members of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, two former Chief Justices of India and many prominent citizens participated. Another important issue on which there was “near unanimity” at the meeting was the procedure for...

Late last month we received the exciting news that India now has a population of 1.21 billion. This figure generated less discussion than I expected. Maybe it would have been more mind-boggling a few months ago, before all the scams and scandals inured us to the large number of zeros that a billion signifies. Or maybe we were distracted by the other bad news in the census results — the...