-The Indian Express Conspiracy theories are a handy standby when one wants to avoid the effort of critical thinking. So Tavleen Singh would rather rely on “the foreign hand” — that old bogey out of Indira Gandhi’s box of tricks — than examine facts that reveal uncomfortable truths. Lamenting the closure of the Vedanta aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh, Orissa (‘Why India could remain forever’, IE, September 30), Singh asserts that, if...

-NDTV A letter written by BJP president Nitin Gadkari lobbying for contractors building a mega-dam project in Maharashtra has the Congress demanding his resignation, and the BJP on the defensive. Written on July 30 to water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Mr Gadkari asks for Rs. 400 crores to be released to the contractors hired for the Gosikhurd dam in Vidarbha. The main contractor is Ajay Sancheti, a BJP member of the...

-Outlook The death of 39 rhinos in and around the world-famous Kaziranga National Park in less than 10 months has brought to the fore the threat faced by the endangered animal. The threat comes from poachers, who kill the rare one-horned rhinoceros for its prized horn whose price in the international market varies from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 90 lakh, and flood which is an annual occurrence in Assam. Early last month,...

-Outlook The Justice MB Shah Commission probing into the multi-crore mining scam today said most of the iron ore and manganese mines in Odisha would come under the purview of its investigation. "The commission will verify records and probe into all the iron ore and manganese mines allocated since 1952 whether closed or in operational stage," said U V Singh, the team leader and Principal Conservator of Forest in Karnataka. Stating that about...

-The United Nations A top United Nations official today strongly encouraged governments to adopt special temporary measures, such as quotas, to boost the number of women in parliament and decision-making positions, pointing to the progress achieved by women in India as a result of affirmative action. “Here in India, quotas have spurred one of the world’s greatest successes in women’s empowerment and grassroots democracy,” Michelle Bachelet said in her keynote address to...