The commission plans to file several cases under the SC & ST Act The battle of Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh's Greater NOIDA area, where violence raged recently over the contentious issue of land acquisition, promises to get bigger. On Thursday, the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes decided to summon the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police of Gautam Budh Nagar district, where the twin villages are located, to seek a...

In what eyewitnesses termed an extremely shocking incident, a Forest department team of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh allegedly beat up a pregnant woman during a raid, resulting in a miscarriage leading to the death of her unborn twins on the spot. According to eyewitnesses, a Forest department team raided the house of Rakesh Adhikaari of Kunjaval village on Wednesday and tried to take him away for allegedly hunting...

A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Greenpeace, on Wednesday lashed out at the Pranab Mukherjee-headed Group of Ministers (GoM) on coal mining for working in an “undemocratic manner” and sought greater transparency and openness in its functioning. “We are demanding that the process be opened up and made transparent. There has to be proper consultation with the stakeholders and issue experts,” Ashish Fernandes of Greenpeace India said in a statement...

While protests from civil society demanding the release of renowned paediatrician and social rights activist Binayak Sen is gathering steam by the day across the country, the international community has also launched an online signature campaign for a petition to be submitted to the President. According to the petition ‘Indian Justice Has Failed Dr. Binayak Sen' posted on www.petitiononline.com, more than 10,300 persons from cities across the world have already signed...

The CBI's record in the Jain hawala case was disappointing. But there are powerful elements in favour of unravelling the truth in the 2G scam. On December 16, 2010, the Supreme Court (Justices G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly, ) ordered a comprehensive and thorough investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate into what has become notorious as “the 2G scam.” The investigation, into spectrum allocation from...