In the initial months of governance by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, attempts appear to have been made to begin subverting the positive results of the land reform programme of the Left Front. What is happening appears to be the inevitable outcome of political rivalry, the hegemonic rule of one party giving place to another, with the citadel of power changing its colour, making the “red” one “green”. But...

-The Telegraph   TV pictures of a young woman being pulled by the hair and thrashed inside a police station have caused outrage in poll-bound Punjab and embarrassed the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal. Raj Kaur, 22, was beaten up by head constable Manjeet Singh at the Baretta police station, over 200km from Chandigarh, in Mansa district for allegedly stealing a gold chain. Someone filmed the assault on a cellphone camera. A district official alleged...

-IANS Two officials of the AMRI hospital were arrested Monday in connection with the Dec 9 fire at the medical centre, which claimed 94 lives, and sent to police custody till Jan 30 by a court.   "Pritha Banerjee (vice president-administration) and Sajid Hussain (security in- charge) have been ordered to police custody by the Alipore court till Jan 30. They were arrested from Alipore in the morning (Monday)," hospital's counsel Salim Rahman...

Corruption has become a serious problem, defying solutions. To curb it, several measures are needed apart from the Lokpal bill, the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill and the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons Making the Disclosures Bill, otherwise known as the whistlblowers protection bill. The three bills, in their present form, do not appear capable of achieving the avowed objective. Like the Right to Information Act, these bills...

Police claim it's suicide, but medical report establishes signs of torture On the day Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh addressed a public gathering to mark the creation of Sukma district, carved out of Maoist-affected Dantewada, a custodial death in the Sukma police station underlines the difficulty in winning over a disaffected tribal populace in the backdrop of a violent counterinsurgency campaign. Podiyam Mara of Kondre village died in the police station on...