-The Economic Times "We have no power." That's the message from India's most powerful - ministers in the central government's Cabinet - when asked to list the discretionary authority each enjoyed. Only one ministry concedes that it has some discretionary powers, which it is eager to shed.  Prodded by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, a group of ministers (GoM) has the job of finding the discretionary powers enjoyed by each ministry and prune...

-Orissa Diary   Narayanpatna : About 5000 tribals from across Narayanpatna and Bandhugan blocks in Koraput district were stopped by heavily armed security forces at different places this morning as they were on their way to attend the two-day convention on preservation of tribal language and culture.  This convention, planned for 21st and 22nd February 2012 at Balipeta Hatpada, was to be attended by 10,000 tribals from 12 different tribes across Koraput district....

-Rediff.com    The last six to seven years of the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar has not seen any significant increase in Maoist violence, which nevertheless continues to take a toll of lives and government property. According to figures compiled by the state police headquarters, in 2008, the Maoists destroyed three government buildings, blasted railway tracks at six places, besides two private buildings, torched five JCB machines used in road construction and 12...

Holding that “ideology should control the gun and not vice versa,” Odisha Organising Committee secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) Sabyasachi Panda admitted that many of the outfit's cadres were becoming trigger-happy due to an inadequate understanding of revolutionary movement and society. “Ideology should control the gun, not vice versa. Many of our cadres, who are armed, do not know about principles. As a result, they resort to...

Allegations against the CM were not established: report The Special Investigation Team headed by R.K. Raghavan gave a ‘clean chit' to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in May 2010 when it submitted to the Supreme Court its first report on the complaint of Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jaffri, former Congress MP, was among the 69 persons killed in the Gulberg Housing Society riots in 2002. The SIT, in its report, said:...