A Dantewada district court yesterday granted bail to D.V.C.S. Verma, the general manager of an Essar Steel plant, who was arrested last September in a case of alleged protection pay to Maoists. The court said investigators had not been able to provide any concrete evidence against the official. Chhattisgarh police had arrested Verma based on the statement of a local contractor, B.K. Lala, who was allegedly caught red-handed while paying Rs 15...

At the peak of Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi last year, some of his former aides in Maharashtra had cautioned that he should not get carried away by the hype. Last week, at Mumbai’s thinly populated MMRDA Grounds where his latest agitation flopped, there were a few lessons for Hazare and his team. One being: never take people for granted. Some of Hazare’s former associates suggest that the craze that the Lokpal...

A life bound to a wheelchair, with speech inability and two heart attacks, would not seem like much of a life. But doctor Sharadkumar Dicksheet proved it wrong. In over four decades, Dicksheet performed over 2.5 lakh facial reconstructive surgeries for free. Until this winter, that is. He died on November 14 in Brooklyn, US. He was 81. Dicksheet has two daughters and a son from two marriages, neither of which lasted. What...

Vilas Bhagwan Pote grins as he recalls his election as sarpanch of Ralegan Siddhi, Anna Hazare’s village in Ahmednagar district, 11 years ago. “I was the traitor, the bad guy,” he jokes. “I openly defied Anna because I felt he was wrong.” Pote, a Dalit charmakar (cobbler) then in his 30s, had been unhappy as the 2000 panchayat polls drew close. As always, Anna had nominated a new executive body for the...

A Vidarbha farm widow who gained fame after appearing on a special episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati last month has written to Sonia Gandhi and threatened suicide. Aparna Malikar, 27, says she has asked Sonia to rein in her brother-in-law Raghunath, an NCP-turned Congress leader, whom she accuses of harassing her and her parents so that “I give up my claim on (my) farmland and house”. In the three-page letter, written in...