While the state government’s attempt to illegally dam the Kalu river in rural Murbad, Thane, is being challenged in court, it now emerges that the government has made false claims in its affidavit — about the total number of villages that will be affected, the number of people who will be displaced, and the amount of land that will be submerged. To make it all worse, work on the dam...

-The Hindustan Times   Nine years after the path-breaking documentary War and Peace, Anand Patwardhan, one of India's controversial filmmakers, is back with a documentary on Dalit music and activism - Jai Bhim Comrade. Last week, his film was awarded the Ram Bahadur Trophy for the Best Film at the Film Southasia 2011 festival held at Kathmandu. Fourteen years in the making, the three-hour-and-20 minute-long film explores the history of Dalit activism...

Soni Sori, a 36 year old adivasi school teacher arrested in New Delhi on charges of being a Maoist, and sent to Dantewada for police interrogation, was admitted to the district hospital on Monday morning with head and back injuries. "She was unconscious when she was brought here around 9.30 am," said Dr SPS Shandilya, chief medical officer. An X- ray confirmed the injuries. "She has contusions on the right side of...

-The Times of India   An RTI activist was attacked by four people, two of them believed to be cricket bookies, with a chopper and hammer in subur-ban Kandivali in Mumbai, police said. According to police, the activist, Mehul Kataria, 39, was walking on the road on Friday night when the assailants started thrashing him. The accused ran away when people gathered around the place. Kataria was rushed to the nearby...

India is finally ready with a comprehensive Bill that will protect children from sexual abuse. But the Bill, says author-activist Pinki Virani, has a major flaw regarding sexual consent that needs to be immediately addressed and the stakeholders consulted before it becomes law. With a certain Standing Committee so much in the news, let us look at what is happening with another Standing Committee looking into a Bill to protect children...