-The Times of India   Deputy commissioner Amitabh Kaushal has ordered all six BDOs of the district to lodge FIRs against the striking MGNREGAworkers who have violated directives issued by the administration. The workers were asked to submit documents related to job schemes to BDOs concerned so that the schemes in the district to be continued. Acting on the directive, FIRs have been registered against those rojgar sewaks who have violated the order, said...

Warnings have, by and large, been discarded perhaps ever since the forbidden apple was eaten. So is the fate of the warning from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown almost on the ides of March last year, on March 11, 2011 to be precise. Nuclear apologists who earlier professed that lessons had been learnt from Chernobyl and that design modifications had been made in reactors to avert another accident are now brushing...

Despite sustained campaigns and legalchanges, convictions have declined steadily From the near-illegible notes scrawled by investigators at the Prasad Nagar police station, we know this: ever since 2005, the young woman who walked in through their doors last month had been stalked by her brother-in-law, given flowers and chocolate and beatings. There was the time, a bottle of rat-poison in his hand, he threatened to kill himself if she did not declare...

In a state where mining mafia has become audacious enough to allegedly kill a young IPS officer, the mineral resources department does not even keep record of its minister’s periodic review of illegal mining, storage and transportation. This shocking state of affairs in the department has been laid bare by the department’s reply to a recent RTI application.   The RTI plea was filed in December 2011 with the mineral resources department...

Rights activists and unions have dubbed “racist” and “class-specific” a Tamil Nadu police exercise of enumerating workers, college students and tenants from other states based on their ethnicity and language. The drive comes after five alleged bank robbers were shot dead in Chennai last month. Documents found with them suggested they were from Bihar and Bengal. Some of the activists are planning to challenge the count in court saying it goes against...