Just two and half years ago, Kandhamal was India’s shame as a communal violence triggered by the killing of a Hindu seer left 38 people dead, thousands of houses and hundreds of churches burnt and vandalised and several thousand people scurrying to relief camps for safety. As Christian were slayed and attacked by VHP and RSS goons across the district, it forced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call it a...

Two-and-A-half years ago, Kandhamal was tagged as a “national shame”, after communal violence triggered by the killing of a Hindu seer left 38 people dead, with houses and churches burnt and vandalised, and thousands of people homeless. But on February 2, Kandhamal is set to get a different tag — one of “national pride” — as the Union Ministry of Rural Development awards it for being one of the top 10...

The class bias in government policy is clear in the decision to release a small amount of foodgrain in the open market to tackle inflation. MOST people would agree that there is a strong element of speculation underlying the current inflation and that forward trading contributes to it. Yet the government, though it has banned forward trading in CERTain commodities under public pressure, is curiously reluctant to see this point....

Stir over lease to Dharmana Prasada Rao's family takes a violent turn An Assistant Director of the Mines Department, V. Koteswara Raju, was assaulted by tribals on the Kannedhara Hills near Seethampeta as the agitation against the mining lease granted to R&B Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao's family took a violent turn on Friday. Angry tribals beat up the official and tore his dress holding him responsible for granting the mining lease...

Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached...