Baba Ramdev's close associate Acharya Balkrishna has been missing after the June 4 clash at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi. Sources say the Government will probe the alleged fake passport Balkrishna holds. If the immigration department puts up a complaint, action will be taken against him. The going is getting tough for Ramdev too, as the Government looks to probe his assets. From yoga guru to would be politician to business tycoon...

Sheikh Sajed Ali doesn’t dare leave the Jamshed Ali Bhawan party office in West Midnapore’s Keshpur. It’s the only refuge the sharecropper has been able to find since the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, or CPM, got wiped out in the recent assembly elections by the Trinamool Congress and its allies. Ali is terrified to venture out. He says his family is being asked to pay `2...

If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it,' quipped Charles F Kettering , the famous American engineer and inventor of the electric starter. Well, the government has done just that! It has appointed an eight-member committee to examine ways to tackle black money. Perhaps that is too cynical! After all, the flurry of activity (the committee is only one of a series...

-The United Nations   Investing a relatively small amount each year in the forestry sector could halve deforestation, create millions of new jobs and help tackle the devastating effects of climate change, according to a United Nations report released today to mark World Environment Day. The report, “Forests in a Green Economy: A Synthesis,” finds that an additional $40 billion spent each year in the forestry sector – or just 0.034 per...

-The Hindu   The midnight police swoop on yoga exponent and telestar ‘Baba' Ramdev and his supporters was arbitrary, brutal, and anti-democratic. A peaceful assembly had suddenly been set upon and tens of innocent people injured for no fault of their own. “No government has reached out as much as ours,” negotiating Minister Kapil Sibal had boasted on the eve of the action. “But if we can reach out, we can...