THIRTY-EIGHT years ago, Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse working at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, was sexually assaulted and strangled by a sweeper. The attack caused severe brain damage and left Aruna in a persistent vegetative state. The former nurse is looked after by a team of doctors and nurses at KEM. According to several reports, Aruna cannot move or see. She just lies in a comatose state in...

As intermittent jubilation spreads through the crowd of 5,000-odd farmers at Moti Buru, outskirts of Ahmedabad, where the 'Jal, Jameen Jungle bachao padyatra' was on Saturday, Dr Kanubhai Kalsariya is quick to assert that this is not the final victory and that the fortnight-long yatra will continue till Gandhinagar as per schedule. The people's mass protest that has brought them this victory is spectacular in its own right. Fatigued from the...

Let Aruna die? No, with her alive, there’s more power, media attention. Hence, the politics of mercy in medicine. Lucknow airport. Late ’90s. Khushwant Singh and I are waiting for our flights, we talk about Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee mentioning my book Once Was Bombay in a speech on collapsing cities. He suddenly asks, “You wrote that book on the woman who neither lives nor dies, you still see her?” I...

At least 10 RTI applicants have been killed over the past two years, with many others facing threats in their bid to expose corruption On a Republic Day when India celebrated 61 years of justice, equality and liberty, Amar Nath Pandey says he encountered the darkest moment of his life. In late evening on 26 January, a lone assailant leaped from the folds of darkness in the street outside his house in...

Administrative sanction for 593 works They include construction of libraries Rural infrastructure in Tirupur district will undergo a moderate transformation if the improvement plans conceptualised by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) at around Rs. 20 crore for the current financial year materialises at the ground level. Official sources told The Hindu that as part of the project, administrative sanction had been accorded to 593 works in 45 panchayats at Rs. 9 crore...