-The Hindu The killing of the Ranvir Sena chief and the violence it triggered expose the fragile foundations of Nitish Kumar's ‘new Bihar'   The assassination of Brahmeshwar Singh alias Mukhiya, founder of Ranvir Sena, the dreaded private army of upper caste Bhumihars, raises fears of the revival of “Barbaric Bihar”. From the first major massacre of Dalits in Belchi in 1977 to the killings in Mianpur in 2000 by socially dominant castes...

Yet-to-be-made public report dismisses environmental concerns The high-level committee set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to study the socio-economic and ecological impacts of the proposed bauxite mining in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam district has submitted its final report  favouring mining. The committee concludes mining will not have any significant negative impact on the ecology. At the same time it recommends settling all claims under the Forest Rights...

Of late, a childhood friend's 80-year-old mother has taken to writing. Emboldened by her single-mindedness, memories dulled by a lifetime of contingencies now respond readily to the daily rustle of pen on paper. One memory stands out in Surjit Kaur's mind. In 1957, as a fresh eyed schoolteacher from Delhi she went on an educational tour to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. It was 10 years after Independence...

By not resolving the definition of ‘public purpose,' the Land Acquisition Bill keeps the door open for misuse It has taken more than 110 years for the government to draft a new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill. But despite mounting evidence of widespread misuse of government authority in taking over farm land and the increasing protests against the legal ambiguity that abets such exploitative practices, the revised legislation remains dubiously...

-The Hindu Not too happy with the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, Union Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo has asked the State governments to address several lacunae in the law while implementing it at the ground level. “If a clear signal is given to implementing authorities that all rights of forest dwellers must be adhered to and that the democratic...