-PTI   Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today said that had the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act been implemented properly, the naxal menace would not have become so big in Chhattisgarh and other places. Talking to reporters after his tour of the naxal-affected areas of the state, Ramesh said that PESA was brought in in 1996 to strengthen panchayats of scheduled areas, but it was not enforced in the right...

The Gujarat government had sacked an employee in connection with the riot case that led to 31 life terms yesterday — not the three among the accused but one who became a key prosecution witness. It was police constable Munsaf Khan, who had not only identified several key accused in the Sardarpura massacre of 33 Muslims but exposed the rioter-police collusion. Khan’s victimisation partly mirrors that of another whistleblower policeman, IPS officer...

Residents overcome an age-old bastion of discrimination The Dalits of Uthapuram village near here, where the ‘untouchability' wall was demolished in 2008, on Thursday entered a temple under the control of the upper caste Hindus, with police protection. Although scores of upper caste Hindus received the 11 Dalit persons outside the temple with folded hands, the scene was marred by the loud wails of women from the nearby streets who were opposed...

These lend weight to journalist's affidavit to Supreme Court on meeting with the police officer The call records of Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and former BBC correspondent Shubhranshu Chaudhary show they spoke to each other in Ahmedabad thrice on the evening of February 27, 2002, just before Mr. Bhatt says he went off to attend a meeting at the Gujarat Chief Minister's residence in which Narendra Modi allegedly asked police...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Mamata Banerjee concurs with P Chidambaram’s counterinsurgency strategy. She revels in rhetoric – Mamata Banerjee’s word of honour was parivartan (change). A large section of the people of West Bengal desperately wanted change, so parivartan brought her to the helm at Writers’ Building, with its Corinthian facade carrying over from the heyday of the East India Company, now, of course, the office and secretariat of the chief minister...