Between 2009 and February 2011, at least 14 people were charged with sedition in India London: The typical citizen could be forgiven for fearing that the world’s largest democracy is hurtling towards George Orwell’s 1984 rather than 2013. In late August the government’s department of telecommunications, citing the “communal tensions” around Assam, blocked more than 300 individual web addresses, including the Twitter profile pages of some journalists. It also ordered a limit...

-The Telegraph Shillong: Meghalaya police, along with the South Garo Hills district administration, have mounted rescue operations to try and save 15 labourers trapped inside a coal mine close to Nangalbibra since last week. According to information received from South Garo Hills, 15 labourers are still trapped inside the mine at Nengkol in the Rongsa Awe area of Nangalbibra region since Friday afternoon. The chances of their survival appear grim. Baghmara, the district...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Telegraph The CRPF will review standard operating procedures (SOPs) on tackling Maoists’ “human shields” and conducting night operations, sources said today, less than a week after Friday’s controversial operation in Chhattisgarh that resulted in 19 deaths. The move came on a day a preliminary report by a panel of state Congress leaders suggested six of those killed were villagers in their teens. Yesterday, Union tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo had...

Nagpur orange’s survival hinges precariously on its return to sustainable cultivation. Farmers have woken up to this, but will the government? A beaming Uday Wath hugs the trunk of his sturdy, disease-free Nagpur orange tree. All around him are trees drooping with the fruit, large and healthy. The tree trunks are singularly free of both telltale gummosis wounds and bluish white bordeaux paste, the chemical meant to prevent them. Not more than...