Best of Hardnews: Political stories

Read our best political stories from the eight year anniversary edition

December 13's bodily fluids
Kashmir is a twilight zone. The Parliament attack is layered with half-lies. And pre- and post-Gujarat, Muslims are being targetted all over India. Arundhati Roy in conversation with Amit Sengupta

The train stops at Nandigram
After 30 years of being big bully, big brother in Orwellian West Bengal, with 'Buddha' being equated with Narendra Modi as 'the role model of development', Nandigram might mark the epitaph of the CPI(M) in 'India Shining'
Amit Sengupta Delhi

What's wrong with the CPM?
Left Front allies should withdraw from the council of ministers in West Bengal. Such a drastic step alone can trigger serious rethinking within the CPM
Praful Bidwai Delhi

Who is the Left?
We salute the magnificent spirit in which secular-democratic and genuinely socialist forces in Bengal express their dissent. Maybe, a Left politics will emerge out of this churning. It cannot possibly come out of the morally bankrupt official Left
Sumit Sarkar/Tanika Sarkar Delhi 

Citizen Kane says goodbye
With the death of Russy Karanjia, editor of Blitz, the journey of journalism from socialist ideals to Hindutva to corporate interests takes a full circle. The only irony is that even in his last days he thought that the fiery tabloid was still shaping the politics of the day
Sanjay Kapoor, Delhi

Power flows from the barrel of the BALLOT
Can Maoists form the government in Nepal? Will the army follow protocol? Will the king go and the parties accept the Maoists? Will the mandate overcome the feudals? Will India checkmate Washington?
Amit Sengupta Kathmandu

It's a fusion of bullet and ballot'
Exclusive interview with Baburam Bhattarai in his residence at Ekantkuna (literally, Lonely Corner) in Kathmandu, amid major political churning, hardening of stances across the spectrum and suspense in political circles
Amit Sengupta Kathmandu

It's been a hard day's night 
But working like a dog might not lead to a full wage in the corrupt, feudal interiors of rural India. Hardnews enters the twilight zones of NREGS, UPA's 'miracle project'
Akash Bisht Delhi

Not the last tango in Tibet
Lhasa has not yet recovered from the jolts of the March uprising. Between economic prosperity and visible censorship, it's a deceptive Tibetan tangle
Amit Sengupta Lhasa

Dr Binayak Sen, My Brother, Our Hero
Twenty two Noble Laureates pleaded for him in an appeal to the PM. He was given the highest American medical award, honours by medical colleges and doctors in recognition of his protracted work for the poor in remote interiors. And yet, he is condemned in jail on fabricated charges by the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. Dr Binayak Sen's younger brother arrives from Belgium to seek justice for his Dada, and discovers a saga of pain and injustice. Special to Hardnews
Dipankar Sen Raipur/Delhi

The Terrorist who was not a Terrorist
Eyewitness account of a young boy picked up from his home in Jamia Nagar by the Special Cell
Amit Sengupta/Akash Bisht Delhi

The Agony of Palestine
Historian Dilip Simeon in Delhi explores the history of the Holocaust of Jews by the Nazis, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the origin of the bloody conflict and the Gaza carnage. Is peace, justice and reconciliation possible?
Dilip Simeon Hardnews Bureau

Community under siege
Rakhi Chakrabarty Azamgarh / Delhi
Three-year-old Musab was playing barefooted in the dusty lanes of Sanjarpur, a non-descript village of Azamgarh in eastern UP. As soon as he heard the name of his elder brother, Saif, he stopped and gaped at the stranger in his mohalla, wide-eyed. He looked around as if expecting someone. A moment later, he ran to his father, Shadab Ahmed, and cried, "Take me to Saif bhai."

Who will bell the cat?
Hardnews investigations reveal that most foreign bank accounts are of Indian companies and politicians. Will Advani have the courage to do an Obama on these banks?
Sanjay Kapoor Berne (Switzerland) / Delhi

'SOCIAL CHANGE is possible if you got off your backside and did something'
Face to Face: Tariq Ali
Mehru Jaffer Vienna

At the Epicentre: Neither Spring, nor Thunder
So, whatever happened to the peasant revolt led by Naxalite legend Charu Majumdar in the original birth place of the revolution 42 years after?
Chaman Lal Naxalbari (West Bengal)

Yes, let's talk Balochistan!
Now that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's infinite wisdom has put Balochistan on the agenda, let's talk self-determination
Mohan Guruswamy Delhi

Conquerors of the golden city
In March 2010, Hardnews reported of the many irregularities in the Commonwealth Games. It was futureless quagmire, those games and Delhi seemed to be helplessly sinking in a haze of smoke and construction, beside a sewage-drain called the Yamuna. While Suresh Kalmadi had the last laugh
Akash Bisht and Sadiq Naqvi Delhi

TO B(t) OR NOT TO B(t)
Gigantic, greedy and powerful multinational companies are using muscle and media power to push through genetically modified food products, backed by parasitic lobbies in India peddling unscientific evidence. Will Jairam Ramesh succumb to this profit cartel?
Shaweta Anand Delhi

Niyamgiri: Not the Last Battle of the Natives
The Dongria Kandhs in Niyamgiri mountains and Kutia Kandhs on the foothills of this ecological hot spot in Orissa, are fighting a hard battle against a notorious mining giant which is backed by the Indian State. If they lose, it would mean genocide
Subrat Kumar Sahu Niyamgiri (Rayagada)

Who pulled the trigger on Hemant Karkare?
Whose bullets killed the Maharashtra ATS chief and Inspector Vijay Salaskar, if they were not that of Kasab and Ismail? Was there some other sinister force out to eliminate Karkare and stop him at all costs? And how come Karkare's line of investigations has finally opened up the terrorist can of Hindutva outfits that triggered bomb blasts across the country?
Hardnews Bureau Delhi

Reddys run Amok
CBI arrests former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy on criminal charges related to the mining empire that he and his brothers run. Hardnewswas among the first to report how the state government is hand in glove with the mining mafia.
Sanjay Kapoor Bangalore

Shadow of the Enemy
There are murmurs about outbreak of civil war in Afghanistan, if the withdrawal of international forces leads to domination by Pakistan
Shrinivasrao Sohoni Kabul

Modi's method
After the genocide in 2002 and a string of fake encounters targeting Muslims, the 'Hindutva lab' is again active. Now, secular social activists are being branded as Maoists and jailed
Sadiq Naqvi Delhi

Why Kashmir Burns
It's our inability to talk about Kashmir outside the framework set by popular media, government propaganda and the rhetoric of nationalism, that fails us in the eyes of Kashmir today
Smita Singh Bangalore/ Srinagar

Revolutionary Road
You can feel it in the moist air, a new progressive, libertarian, liberating ethos. A Great New American Dream is blooming down the shimmering waters of the Willamette river
Amit Sengupta Portland/ Salem (Oregon)

Dirty Spectrum
The 2G scam throws light once again on how corporate power leaves no stone unturned in making governments act in its interest
Sanjay Kapoor Delhi

10 Janpath's Discreet Chanakya
Politicians across the spectrum consider Ahmed Patel second only to Sonia Gandhi. So what makes him tick?
Akash Bisht Delhi

WILL LK ADVANI EVER RETIRE?
His first rath yatra led to Babri masjid demolition -- the blackest day in the history of India -- followed by riots all over. After that, all his yatras have failed. Now at 83 he is threatening yet another yatra. Will LK Advani ever retire?
Akash Bisht Delhi

5 QUESTIONS: 'What will giving up achieve?'
Farieha Aziz is currently Assistant Editor, Newsline, Karachi. She was awarded the APNS (All Pakistan Newspaper Society) award for Best Investigative Report (Business/Economic) in 2007-08

GROUND ZERO REDUX
You have seen it all on non-stop television. You have read it all in the papers. Now, we bring to you on-the-spot reportage from the ground. Rediscover Anna's experiments with truth. Diary of a 'wave' that sweptIndia. Or, did it, really?
Akash Bisht/Sadiq Naqvi Delhi

'ANNA MOVEMENT REFLECTS STREAK OF FASCISM'
'Vande Mataram or Bharat Mata are not merely innocent patriotic symbolisms, they are deeply identified with the RSS,' says Anand Teltumbde. An eminent academic, writer, political analyst and civil rights activist, Teltumbde is a management practitioner based in Mumbai. He has authored many analytical books on Left and Dalit movements, including the acclaimed Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop. In this incisive interview, he critically dissects and analyses the Anna Hazare phenomena. In conversation with Hardnews

At the threshold
With the US and rest of the West backing the rebels, will Syria go the Libya way? Not yet, it seems
Sanjay Kapoor Damascus (Syria)