On Saturday, over 40 hours after the “biggest encounter” involving security forces and Maoists in Chhattisgarh, bodies of 19 alleged “hardcore Maoists and Jan Militia members” lay outside their huts in the three villages of Sarkeguda, Kottaguda and Rajpenta in Bijapur. Villagers alleged no government official had spoken to them or visited their homes, and no autopsies had been carried out on the bodies. Several bodies appeared to have been brutalised. This...

-Outlook A girl from small-town Bihar has big ideas She travelled to Norway when she was barely 12 years old to speak on energy conservation. At least switch to CFL and LED, she had pleaded. That was four years ago. Her village in Dumka, Bihar, still has no electricity. At Rio this month, Shweta Marandi gave a one-and-a-half hour presentation on the same subject and was invited to visit Rome and...

-The Times of India The Assam government on Thursday declared the current floods in the state as the worst since 2004. So far 23 people have died in the calamity even as the army, IAF and the National Disaster Response Force of BSF have been pressed into service for rescue and relief operations. Government spokesman and agriculture minister Nilamoni Sen Deka said, "The government is making all necessary efforts to help the...

-The Hindustan Times The flood situation in Assam worsened on Thursday with new areas coming under water and the toll reaching 22. Altogether, 21 districts have been affected following the week-long incessant rains. The river has breached embankment at five places, affecting 1,744 villages across nine districts and 70,000 hectares of crop land. The situation in Kamrup, Nalbari and Bongaigaon in lower Assam worsened on Thursday, after the tributaries of Brahmaputra breached their...

Ranchi: Supreme Court today dismissed a petition filed by local tribals against setting up three national institutes of higher learning on the outskirts of Ranchi, arming a hitherto defensive district administration to deal with the ongoing protests firmly. According to lawyer Rajeev Gupta, representing petitioners Mangu Oraon and others, an apex court division bench comprising Justice H.L. Gokhale and Justice Ranjana Desai observed that “it’s a 50-year old case” which the...