SOMETIMES, TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback. The year is 2006. An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What could...

A fact finding team of many civil society organizations has reported widespread occurrences of murders, tortures and cases of police atrocities in Chhattisgarh in the name of combating Naxalism. It is also being alleged that in the name of their own security, journalists are being stopped from going to so called “combat zones” where security forces have launched an Operation Greenhunt to flush out armed Maoists.  Fifteen members of the...

With the national capital furiously gearing up to meet the deadlines of the Commonwealth Games, the alarming number of deaths of construction workers in absence of proper safety norms and adequate compensation is a cause of concern, say social activists. The actual number of accidents and casualties are much more but many such cases never get reported, they add. Fifty nine construction workers were killed and 115 suffered serious injuries...

In their own manner, Indian Maoists have worked out the rationale of what they are doing. The grisly serial murders they are indulging in are, in the first instance, intended to warn god-fearing men and women in the areas they are entrenched in to behave and not act as police informers. Should their instructions be infringed, retribution would be swift and merciless. The brutal killings, specifically of CPI(M) cadre and...

This is a statement sent in by V.R. Krishna Iyer, a former Judge of the Supreme Court, who is based in Kochi: Some of the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that India recently signed with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will weaken India’s, and specifically Kerala’s, rubber sector because Malaysia and a few other countries that are a part of the ASEAN will flood the...