The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes is upset that two important bills that would affect tribals have got the cabinet’s nod without incorporating suggestions given by the panel. “The ministries of mines and rural development failed to consult the NCST as mandated by the Constitution,” commission chairman Rameshwar Oraon told The Telegraph on Wednesday. Secretaries of both ministries had met Oraon, but what the NCST chief meant was the final drafts of...

A fresh public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday challenging the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s civil nuclear power programme. The PIL, filed by lawyer Prashant Bhushan on behalf of many former public officials and eminent citizens, makes several demands of the Supreme Court, but most significantly asks it to cancel “clearances given to proposed nuclear power plants and staying all proposed nuclear power plants” till satisfactory...

The media imagery of a “liberated” Red corridor extending from Andhra Pradesh, cutting across the heart of India, all the way to Nepal is the most vivid representation of the threat that Maoists pose to our country. The Prime Minister describes the Maoists as India's most serious internal security challenge and the Home Minister rates it as a “problem graver than terrorism.” In search of an effective response, official committees have,...

-Live Mint   As United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi prepares to intervene next week in the great national debate about who is poor, she might want to visit north-eastern Mumbai to see how the poorest are not even classified as such and how a giant government scheme to save their children from malnutrition is failing. The nauseating stench from a mountain of garbage greets a visitor to Rafi Nagar at the base...

As many as 56 villages in the Saranda forests, freed from over 10 years of Maoist dominance in a month-long offensive in August, is set to see a new era of development with the Centre planning to showcase it as a test case to prove that police action is no impediment to building social infrastructure. Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, who visited the Jharkhand capital last week, has sent a...