-AFP At least 79 people have died and 2.2 million forced to leave their homes over the last week as torrential monsoon rains triggered floods across India's northeast, officials said Monday. Assam has been worst hit with the massive Brahmaputra river breaching its banks, while extensive flooding has also hit Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Assam state government said 26 of 27 districts had endured flash floods as heavy rains destroyed thousands of...

-The Economic Times Heaps of dusty files continue to grow in government buildings and sensitive papers are mysteriously lost, leaked or dramatically reduced to ashes in fires while the six-year-old plan to modernise and digitise governance remains tied up in what it should eliminate - red tape. The latest casualty was the Union home ministry, where a fire was reported on Sunday, days after a blaze engulfed Mumbai's Mantralaya, killing people and...

-The Hindu On May 5 this year, Tarun Sehrawat, a photographer with Tehelka, sent me a link to his most recent photo-essay on Abujmard, a Maoist-controlled area in Chhattisgarh. Tarun and I met on assignment in Dantewada in summer 2010 and had stayed in touch. A month-and-half later, last Friday, I attended his funeral after a fever he contracted in Abujmard proved fatal. Tarun died of cerebral malaria; he was 22. I came...

Concern for public health goes up in smoke   India's leading cigarette manufacturer, ITC Ltd, made financial contributions of Rs. 6.78 crore in the last two years to all major political parties in the country, causing public health activists here to question the possible interference of tobacco companies “in the Central government's efforts to bring in tougher anti-tobacco laws in the country.” Figures disclosed by ITC Ltd — and released recently by activists...

Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is the foremost problem of Orissa and the most daunting challenge for CM Naveen Patnaik, whose 12-year tenure has witnessed a rapid rise in intensity and spread of Maoist insurgency in the state.  Twentyfour of the 30 districts are now affected. Orissa has become a refuge for Maoist cadres who freely migrate to neighbouring regions.  In many of the troubled territories, especially in south-western parts of the state,...