-The Hindu   As TRAI prepares to regulate ownership of news organisations to ensure pluralism, big media houses fear shrinking profits and state control by proxy Rahul Khullar, the straight-talking chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), listened attentively to the senior management executive of Bennett Coleman and Co. Limited, one of India's largest media conglomerates. The latter disagreed with the premise of the discussion - that there was a "problem,"...

-Tehelka Close to 30 percent of forests have been converted to Chir Pine monocultures displacing grazing rights of several communities like the Gaddis and Gujjars. There is no quantitative assessement of the impact of loss on people's lives The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, or Recognition of Forest Rights Act - commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was passed by Parliament in 2006 to address historical injustices...

-The Hindu Farmers say they are ready to return compensation but in instalments Allahabad: Lathi maar maar ke utha lehale anshan wahe/ daktar sahib soochna pahuchain naye mukhyamantri se bataiye da/ hum aapan zamin na dewai/ hame na chahi kuch tumhara. (Police beat protesting farmers and remanded them/We heard a new CM is coming to hear us/Tell him we won't give up our land/We want nothing from you.) This in a mix...

-The HIndu For all its influential reach, the IPL has done little to combat the existing stereotypes about women and done everything to reinforce them IPL 2013 is heading towards its high-intensity, high-octane, high-pitched finale. After the season's numbers have been crunched, the League will dissipate into general back-slapping, errors and omissions excepted. Except that 2013 has been a revelation in itself. While the IPL occupies "soap opera" prime time on TV for...

-Frontline Corruption tends to be greater in periods when there is a state-engineered redistribution of wealth in favour of a few at the explicit or implicit expense of the many. Liberalisation is one such period. IT cannot be verified and may not be true. But, the view that the record of graft and corruption during the two-term, nine-year rule of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is the worst in India's post-Independence...