South Asia

Bench directs action taken report by November 6; Petitioner alleges political protection to main accused

One hundred years of Ritwik Ghatak on November 4 (November 4, 1925-February 6, 1976), revolutionary filmmaker, visionary artist, and committed Marxist. His work continues to influences profoundly, unsettling and inspiring in equal measure

While Pune-based lawyer Asim Sarode is punished for critiquing judicial complacency and political overreach, lawyers who have delivered actual hate speeches walk free. The Bar Council’s action marks a chilling moment for freedom of speech in the legal profession

While affirming Gram Sabha authority under the PESA Act to prevent “forced conversions,” the Chhattisgarh High Court’s ruling raises deeper concerns about the limits of religious liberty, evidentiary reasoning, and constitutional secularism in India’s tribal heartland

Can the country afford the destruction of the Himalayas and do our Himalayan states need help? North India and its Gangetic plain would not survive without the forests, the glaciers and rivers that originate from Himachal, Kashmir and Uttarakhand, and would soon become a desert: these rivers sustain a population of almost 400 million people. It is time that the 16th Finance Commission, follows what was begun in the 12th Finance Commission, and disburses a Green Bonus commensurate to steps taken for ecology and sustainability

The Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) with its all-encompassing vision that moved beyond a pure economist outlook and attempted to relate to national issues like war and militarism as also communalism

Every discussion about the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule tends to revolve around one subject — the Jizya, or the so-called “discriminatory” poll tax