-The Hindu By allowing futures trade in food and diversion of farm land for commercial purposes, the UPA government is fuelling the price rise International agencies are warning of high food prices on a global scale in 2013 if urgent action is not taken. But our government shows little concern. The President’s address to Parliament had only a cursory mention of inflation. “Inflation is easing gradually, but is still a problem,” he...

-The Hindu Ranchi: Late Tuesday morning, Malo Devi, a farmer at Manatu, 20 km from Ranchi, carried her infant grandson Gautam Mahto in her arms across the fields behind her house and had just set him down on a flat rock under a tree, before she started gathering dry leaves for fuel, when she heard a whizzing sound. Three-year-old Gautam lay bleeding, hit in the left leg by a stray bullet...

-The Hindu Patna: The rejection of the Lokpal committee’s recommendation on transfer of CBI officers had exposed the government’s intention of maintaining a grip on the investigating agency, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat said at a press conference here on Friday. “There is a question mark on the understanding of the ruling alliance on Lokpal. They forcibly passed the Bill in the Lok Sabha and when it was...

-The Indian Express The deafening silence from official circles on the Verma committee recommendations is in sharp contrast to the widespread well-deserved appreciation that the committee has received. It is common for governments to form such committees to buy time and take the heat off themselves. Perhaps that was the government’s intention when it set up the committee at the height of the protests in the wake of the brutal gangrape...

-First Post The Jaipur literary festival is almost notorious for creating storms in a teacup. To its credit though, if offers a different flavor of literary tea every year. Last year, it was a variant of the Rushdie phenomenon, where a group of aspiring litterateurs read out passages from the Satanic Verses and then succumbed to political correctness. This year, the controversy came in a session chaired by Urvashi Butalia, publisher Zubaan, where...