“The Right to Information (RTI) Act is a very powerful tool to fight the cancer of corruption, which is eating away at the vitals of the country,” stated former judge PM Dhakephalkar. He was speaking at a discussion on ‘Corruption ridden India’, organised by Community Aid and Sponsorship Programme (Casp) Prabodhan Mandal at SP College on Sunday. Apart from Dhakephalkar, resident editor of Pune edition of DNA, Abhay Vaidya, former director general...

It was widely reported in the print media that G.D. Gautama, the Home Secretary of West Bengal, in his affidavit before the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court in the Netai killings affair, hesitantly admitted the existence of illegal armed intruders in that village while denying any knowledge of the existence of similar harmad camps elsewhere in the Jungle Mahal area. One cannot avoid applauding his gallantry in holding our national motto...

Unlike the educated elite who go Westwards, attracted by better opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers have a much harder time: Practically no rights, hostile working environments and absolutely no support systems. Why is it that the violation of their basic rights doesn't figure at all in the national imagination? About the same time that India aired “absolute displeasure and concern” over...

Though wages are not significantly high, West Asia continues to attract the poor looking for a break… In Benyamin's award-winning Malayalam novel   Aadu Jeevitham (A Sheep-like Life), based on a true life story, the protagonist, Najeeb, is held as a slave labourer on a sheep farm in a faraway desert in Saudi Arabia. For three years, he is forced to do back-breaking work, is kept half-hungry and is denied water to...

The crime branch on Friday filed a chargesheet against Shailesh Pandya in the murder case of RTI activist Amit Jethava. The 400-page chargesheet revealed that Pandya had earlier made a failed attempt also to kill Jethava. The chargesheet consists of statements of 151 witnesses. It states that Pandya was given a contract of Rs 11 lakhs to eliminate Jethava by Bahadur Wadher and Shiva Solanki. The duo hatched the conspiracy to...