Rights

Supreme Court closes proceedings even as Sr. Adv. Hooda mentions the hardships being faced by the protesters, asks them to approach jurisdictional courts

Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize recipient in Economic Sciences said, “Free speech and a free press not only make abuses of governmental powers less likely; they also enhance the likelihood that people’s basic social needs will be met. Secrecy reduces the information available to the citizenry, hobbling people’s ability to participate meaningfully. Essentially, meaningful participation in democratic processes requires informed participants”.

Over six dozen former civil and foreign service servants has written to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) urging intervention to protect both these vulnerable tribal groups who’s habitats and livelihoods are threatened as the union government seeks “development” in violation of Art 338A (9) of the Constitution, that compels both Union and every State Government to consult the NCST on all major policy matters affecting Scheduled Tribes

Four petitioners, Citizens for Justice & Peace (CJP), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Maharashtra, Forum Against the Oppression of Women (FAOW) and Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) have together challenged the Maharashtra government GR setting up a Committee to monitor inter-faith marriages and moreover, the untested justification for the move which is “1 lakh cases of love jihad in the state,” as stated by minister for women and child development, Mangal Prabhat Lodha in the assembly

The farmers halted their march on the second day after the government initiated talks with their leaders.

At a media event yesterday, PM Modi began his speech with a strange 'joke' bordering on the macabre, which was premised on a young woman's death by suicide. Not only was the ‘joke’ in questionable taste, the fact that it received loud applause from the audience has drawn sharp reactions. The speech was shown on a TV channel and videos of it were uploaded on social media as well.

The farmers will resume the march after the state government didn’t respond to their demand for compensation for crops damaged by untimely rains and hailstorms.

This move comes as a result of permission being granted by the Supreme Court to the MMRCL to fell 177 tress

The march, led by intellectuals like P Sainath and others will start from Akola and be be taken to the Loni office of Revenue and Dairy Development Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil.

There was a time when India’s history and social science official texts though burdened with a slew of dates and events in a top down linear narrative nevertheless celebrated the reality of the evolution of a rich and diverse civilizational ethos. Today, the corrosive power of exclusion and hate runs deep: eleven days ago, April 14, reports of a deeply-disturbing incident caused concern on social media but was met with a deafening silence by India’s political class: an 11-year-old boy was allegedly thrashed and stripped simply to pressurise him into “chanting religious slogans” in Madhya Pradesh's Indore. That is how deep of hate flows now in India’s veins