The cotton growers of Vidarbha, who are suffering immensely due to the prevailing agrarian crisis, staged candlelight protests ahead of US President Barack Obama's India visit on Friday. The protests, held under the banner of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti — a pressure group which has been documenting distressed farmers' suicides — sought to draw his attention to the plight of the region's agriculture sector caused by 'American policies'. The main event...

The ‘Aichi Target' adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at its Nagoya conference could not have come at a more appropriate time. The journal Science recently published a study by Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues titled “The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates.” This presents depressing data on threatened species. The scientists conclude that four important factors — agricultural expansion, logging, over-exploitation, and invasive...

Even as railway minister Mamata Banerjee opposes government’s role in acquiring land for private companies , the contentious land acquisition (amendment) bill figures in the list of business for the winter session of Parliament beginning next week. The bill has been hanging fire in the wake of opposition from the Trinamool Congress leader, who recently skipped a meeting convened by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to evolve a consensus within the ruling...

The outgoing CIC interprets the RTI Act in a liberal spirit to direct the Calcutta High Court to provide information to an applicant. IN a landmark decision before he completed his term as Chief Information Commissioner on September 30, Wajahat Habibullah rejected the Calcutta High Court's contention that it was not subject to the CIC's jurisdiction under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The Calcutta High Court has the distinction of...

As many as 139 candidates figuring in the fifth phase of Bihar assembly elections have criminal charges pending against them. 35 assembly constituencies will go to poll in the fifth phase on November nine. This was found after examining 441 affidavits of the candidates, Kumar Anjesh, state coordinator of NGO 'National Watch,' told reporters here. Of 139 contestants, 75 were facing serious criminal charges like murder and attempt to murder, he said. Claiming that...