Salman Rushdie's wholly involuntary no-show at the Jaipur Literary Festival, a big event in India's cultural calendar, highlights yet again the country’s failure to uphold freedom of speech as well as the authorities’ cynical readiness to pander to religious fanatics for narrow electoral advantage

In demonstrations barely reported in the media, peasants and students in the Northeastern Indian state of Assam are fighting together against a proposed gargantuan network of dams across the upper reaches of its rivers in Arunachal Pradesh, one of the world’s six most seismically active regions. The movement has gathered impressive momentum against a project that threatens devastating environmental, demographic and socio-economic impact.

For more than three weeks over 130 people have carried out the longest occupation of government-owned land ever registered in Madhya Pradesh (a state in central India).

The government of India’s decision to roll back legislation that would allow FDI in multi-brand retail is ill-advised. However, in the grand scheme of things it is but a hiatus that at worst merely derails the momentum of reforms.

India’s demand for resource security, potential trade and investment opportunities and a strategic partnership with the African Union is similar to that of China; but the approach that each nation has taken is rather different.

The Sino-American competition for allies within Asia Pacific could be an opportunity for these countries to compel China to narrow conflicting issues, especially India who should focus its foreign policy into engaging China in a proactive way.

Team Anna’s anti-corruption drive is more likely to reinforce an anti-Congress sentiment among the people of India than an anti-corruption stance

The lack of demographic diversity amongst the protestors and uncertainty about their demands make Occupy Wall Street difficult to take seriously, argues Shilpa Kameswaran from a migrant's perspective

"They forced us to sit naked in a row and splashed a mug of water on each of us". Bashirabi is a poor vegetable vendor who was waiting to get a train home to Nagpur when she was detained and sent to a Beggars Home.

India has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The instrument is legally binding and comes at a time when India is recovering from massive corruption scandals involving the top echelons of the Manmohan Singh government.

The first Asian genius to bring ‘Eastern culture’ to the west remains a cultural icon. But his undoubted global relevance has always been contested, and his alternative concept of modernity is so still.

Arundhati Roy ranges broadly over corruption scandals, Wikileaks' excessive desire for the spotlight, Pakistan/India relations, the twinned perils of nationalism and religious fundamentalism ... and how to deal with negative online comments

A high-decibel debate lasting several weeks in India has forced an agreement on introducing a draconian anti-corruption bill. Anna Hazare’s hunger strike with round-the-clock television coverage has divided the nation. Is there a third way between apathy and messianic fanaticism?

Manmohan Singh's government faces its biggest challenge as it prepares to quell the rising protest against the most corrupt government India has ever witnessed. The demand for a new anti-draft bill by activist Anna Hazare and his team is creating a revolution.

With China storming ahead of its neighbours in economic development, we are seeing an admiring India beginning to emulate some of the less attractive aspects of the Chinese style of government. Whose example should they follow?

In the passing of MF Hussain, there is more to be mourned than the death of an Indian artist in exile. Nor is this terminal condition confined to India.

The resolution of violent conflicts, like the one Nepal has endured for over a decade, cannot unfortunately be a linear, logical and smooth process: its impasses are not of a legal nature, but political.

Even if we believe that the first Green revolution benefited India by making it a food-surplus nation, it is important to distinguish it from the second Green revolution that unabashedly ties the nation’s agricultural interests to the vagaries of institutional and corporate market forces.

What is The Democracy Manifesto? A global conversation involving academics, civil society and social movement activists from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America, has set out a credo for our fast-moving times, followed by responses from four of the participants as they continue their conversation in the public domain.

The Democracy Manifesto signals that the time has come to open ourselves to the many ways in which the demos, that is, the people, organize themselves around the world to take charge of their own destiny.