Leading Right to Information (RTI) activist Amit Jethwa was shot dead opposite the high court building in Ahmedabad Tuesday night, police said. Jethwa had just come out after meeting his lawyer and was getting into his vehicle parked near the office of the state bar council, opposite the Gujarat High Court, when two unidentified people on a motor cycle fired a single shot at him. According to eyewitnesses, Jethwa, who...

Justice N Santosh Hegde, till this week the Lok Ayukta of Karnataka, a former Supreme Court judge and the son of the famous late Justice K S Hegde, who resigned from the Supreme Court of India in protest against his supersession by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, contributing to events that culminated in her imposition of national Emergency, has spoken for millions of concerned citizens across the country by quitting...

Take a look at the accompanying map and you can’t but notice the extent of overlap between India’s thickly forested areas, the regions with the bulk of the country’s most important mineral wealth and the territory over which Maoists are dominant. Is this just a coincidence? No, that would stretch credulity. So what connects the Maoist menace with forests and mining? Clearly, forests give a guerilla force its best chance...