India

Dummy Declarations

Dhirendra K Jha

The Telangana quitters of the Congress are merely using the party’s most overused attention-seeking device

General Benefits of the OBC Quota

MT Hany Babu

Percentages and other tricks that educational institutions use to hand over OBC seats to general category candidates

Hanging by a Thread

Shruti Ravindran

Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar is on death row. The charges levelled against him under TADA don’t stick, but President Pratibha Patil has rejected his mercy petition anyway. Mercifully, not everyone is keeping quiet about this

The Rs 1,00,000 crore Headache

Shahina KK

Let alone the Kerala government, no one knows how to deal with the treasure hoard found in the Sree Padmanabha temple

Mercurial Monsoon

Sopan Joshi

The famously capricious rains are reinforcing their reputation every year. Our planners need to take a hand in this Act of God

Communist Manifest Foes

Dhirendra K Jha

As Maoists turn the heat on CPI cadres in Bastar, the latter find themselves in a double bind

Warhorses Gone Wild

Avantika Bhuyan

Unique to this part of the world, these feral horses are a sight to remember. Especially once you know the secret of their lineage

Helpless in Chitapur

Aimee Ginsburg

An Israeli journalist wonders if there is any difference at all between how Israel treats Palestinians and how India treats its poor

The Origins of Ramdev

Rahul Bhatia

The making of Ramdev is inevitably the story of the intriguing world of spiritual TV

Where the Forests Have No Trees

Jay Mazoomdaar

Of the total 60,000 claims filed under the Forest Rights Act in Assam, nearly 30,000 came from a single district. Little wonder, then, that the administration controls less than a third of Sonitpur’s forests. While no political party minds legalising this mass encroachment in the Bodo heartland, the fate of the wilderness hangs by a 2009 High Court order.