People will resort to ‘jal satyagraha,' warns NBA   Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Ltd (SMHPCL), promoters of the Maheshwar dam project, have objected to the Narmada Bachao Andolan's (NBA) claim that massive submergence would take place in the Narmada valley if the dam is filled up to154 metres. Plea to media In a communication to The Hindu on Monday, the SMHPCL accused the NBA of spreading “falsehood” and urged the media to “not...

-PTI English dailies or high circulation Bengali ones will no longer be available in state-sponsored and aided libraries in West Bengal, according to an official circular. The circular specified eight newspapers which it said would significantly contribute to the development and spread of free thinking among the library users. Listing the eight newspapers published in Bengali Hindi and Urdu, the Department of Mass Education, Extension and Library Services, in a circular dated March...

-PTI Stoking controversy, the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal banned English and mass-circulation Bengali dailies at state-sponsored and aided libraries but in a damage-control exercise late tonight said the order was being changed to include more newspapers.  The order by the state government evoked criticism from Trinamool ally Congress, Left parties and the intelligentsia which said the decision was "undemocratic, undesirable and worse than censorship." A demand for withdrawal of the...

-Express News Service Protests erupted across the state, but the Trinamool Congress government stood firm on its circular on the newspapers that readers of all government libraries should read.   “There is no question of withdrawing the circular. Every government has its own policy and the circular was prepared in accordance with government rules and policies. I knew about it. The chief minister also knew it before it was issued,’’ Abdul Karim Choudhury,...

The arrest of Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi in connection with the bomb attack on an Israeli embassy car raises many questions. AN uneasy silence fills the streets of B.K. Dutt Colony near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Named after the revolutionary freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt, who, along with Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929, the nondescript colony has been...