Why were two tribals and the Essar group framed by the Chhattisgarh police? Why are Soni Sori and Linga Kodopi being systematically silenced? This chilling story of one family reveals more about India's Naxal crisis than any official document can. AS I sit to write this, at 12.20 pm on 4 October 2011, an SMS pops up on my phone: “Soni Sori has been arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch.” The...

-The Business Standard   PDS no prerequisite for grain entitlement to general-category families. The contours of the Food Security Bill are firming up, what with the proposed legislation now stipulating a monthly minimum of seven kilograms of grains per person for the country’s priority households. In fact, this category of families — with a pregnant woman, dependent children or a differently-abled member — will get even higher quota depending upon the availability, as...

-Live Mint   As United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi prepares to intervene next week in the great national debate about who is poor, she might want to visit north-eastern Mumbai to see how the poorest are not even classified as such and how a giant government scheme to save their children from malnutrition is failing. The nauseating stench from a mountain of garbage greets a visitor to Rafi Nagar at the base...

The power position in Bengal improved today but alarm bells are ringing over imported coal stocks that are running out fast. “The stock of imported coal will exhaust by the end of this month,” said Krishna Gupta, the managing director of the West Bengal Power Development Corporation Ltd (WBPDCL), the largest electricity supplier in the state. The corporation had last year imported 1.2 million tonnes of coal from Indonesia. “We will come up...

In one little patch of Maharashtra, a lot, it seems, lies in a name. About 175 girls whose names mean “unwanted” in Marathi will be re-christened in a public ceremony next week in a novel initiative to fight female foeticide. The Satara zilla parishad in west Maharashtra has found in a survey of the district that parents with many girl children often name them Nakusa, Nakoshi or Nakushi, all meaning “unwanted” or...