The chief of the army's central command surveyed Abhujmaadh forests from the air and then landed in Raipur to allay anxieties over a potential conflict escalation in the Maoist controlled forest in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district where the army plans to train its troops. "We will exercise maximum restraint. This is our country, they are our people," said Lieutenant General Vijay Ahluwalia, emphasising that the army would be deployed solely for the...

The Orissa government bats for it, the PMO is in favour and environment minister Jairam Ramesh has obliged, but the Rs 54,000-crore Posco project has found two difficult adversaries —the villages of Dhinkia and Gobindpur. The two villages have written to Ramesh, saying they have not agreed to the takeover of forest land for the integrated steel plant under the Forest Rights Act and complained the Act has not been implemented...

Five members of a farmer’s family attempted suicide at a land dealer’s residence in Dodar village of Sanand taluka of Ahmedabad district by consuming pesticide, on Monday. The family has alleged that the land dealer, Vikram Fulabhai Solanki, an advocate, had duped them of their farmland spread over 15 bighas worth over Rs 5 crore, which he had refused to return. The five have been identified as Mansinh Ramu Sandhav (70), Kalusinh...

The United Nations began laying the groundwork today for a global “social protection floor” that would guarantee food security, health services for all and old-age pensions, with a senior official stressing that all that is lacking is the political will for an initiative needing minimum investment. “Social security is a human right. We’ve forgotten that for a very long time, but roughly only 20 per cent of the global population has...

I was awakened early one morning recently by someone who said he was enormously enjoying my on-going debate on economic growth in India. I was very pleased that I had given someone some joy, but I also wondered what on earth he could be talking about, since I have not been involved in any such debate. As it happens, I am getting a steady stream of telephone calls and electronic...