Articles by K Balagopal

The Supreme Court, which is hearing writ petitions on the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh asked the National Human Rights Commission to constitute a fact finding committee that would prepare a report on allegations "relating to violation of human rights by the Naxalites and Salwa Judum". The report, prepared by a group set up by the police wing of the NHRC makes no pretence of neutrality or objectivity. It reads like a partisan statement, whose tone and tenor is to protect the Salwa Judum and its image from being tarnished by allegations of crime.

It is a characteristic of the land grant bonanza that has overtaken the country in the era of double digit growth that nobody is asking why industrial or house-building concerns need all the land they are being granted. The phenomenon is virulent in Andhra Pradesh. The second in a three-part article.

We strongly condemn the arrest of Binayak Sen, general secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Chhattisgarh [PUCL (Chhattisgarh)] and vice-president, PUCL (national) under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 2004 and Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA),

A cycle of violence and counter-violence is devastating the lives of adivasis in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, a Maoist "liberated area". There is no official record of the number of persons killed as a result of the brutal violence of the Salwa Judum. While the Maoists had put an end to the severe harassment of the adivasis by forest and police officials, successfully resisted domination and oppression of the adivasis by the patel-patwari, and raised the rate for picking the tendu leaf, there are certain conflicts of interest in the present context of a counter-insurgency that have created a divide within the tribal community, which makes the present atmosphere tense.

In a recent judgment, which is replete with arguments against reservations as such, the Supreme Court has argued that apportionment of the reservations made to SCs or STs to subgroups within cannot be done by the state legislatures. Indeed, even Parliament does not have the competence to do so since the Constitution has intended that the SCs and STs are an indivisible, homogeneous entity.