-GovernanceNow.com The cost of maintaining our 5.3 million stray cattle comes to about Rs 30,115 core per year A lot of debate that we witness in the media on the cattle question these days suffer from the disease of speculative utopian imagination of a ‘cow-nation’ and relentless abuses for those beef-eating ‘others’.   Political debates over the question of our bovine stock has mostly been heavily polarising and mindlessly simplistic, notwithstanding exceptions like veteran...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A group of retired bureaucrats have written an open letter ruing the "rising authoritarianism and majoritarianism" that is choking dissent, and urging public authorities to take "corrective action" to "reclaim and defend the spirit of the Constitution". "Argumentation and discussion about different perspectives - the lifeblood not only of institutions of learning but of democracy itself -are being throttled," the letter says. "Disagreement and dissent are considered seditious...

-The Times of India While there is no denying that the regressive practice of triple talaq needs to end, just how prevalent is it in the Muslim community and how are divorce and separation handled in other Religious Communities? The share of divorced women is indeed high among Muslims — 5 for every 1,000 ever married women, according to Census 2011. This is twice the rate among Hindus, but almost the same...

-NationalHeraldIndia.com The divorce rate among Muslims in the 2011 Census is lower than among Hindus. And while there is no survey on cases of ‘triple talaq’, the incidence could be as low as 1% of the total While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, TV channels and the Supreme Court are all concerned over the ‘regressive’ practice of triple talaq, here are 10 facts that put the issue in perspective. *...

-TheWire.in Since coming into effect 21 years ago, PESA has been grossly misused and underutilised, disenfranchising Adivasi communities all over the country. In India, tribal communities have had a long history of struggle, including during the colonial rule. In fact, the tribal war for independence has largely been ignored in the popular history of independent India. Today, most of us are not aware that the war of independence started as early as...