-The Hindu The CBI, expanding its coalgate probe, has launched investigations against 300-odd companies and begun questioning officials of the Steel, Coal and Power departments, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited and the state-run Coal India Limited on allocation of coal blocks between 1993 and 2008. The CBI has laid hands on nearly 700 files from the Coal Ministry, running into 1,60,000 pages,...

-The Hindu Withdraw cases against villagers, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti: Civil society groups Several civil society groups have alleged abuse of human rights and registration of false cases by State government agencies in order to curb resistance against the land acquisition for the proposed Posco steel plant in Odisha. Highlighting instances of “biased and arbitrary” police action in the eight villages of Jagatsinghpur district affected by the plant, illustrated in the recently-released fact...

-The Indian Express The victim in the Suryanelli rape case tells her story—a nightmare that lasted 40 days and the trauma that stayed with her every day for the past 17 years She is the ‘Suryanelli girl’. “But that’s not my name.” It’s not. It’s the name of the village in Kerala’s Idukki district where she lived a 16-year-old’s life—happy, innocent, smiling easily. She doesn’t smile easily anymore, but then, a lot...

-AFP Child victims of sex assaults in India often find themselves humiliated by the police and mistreated by doctors when they pluck up the courage to report abuse, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. In a report released amid continuing anger at the handling of sex cases in the wake of a deadly gang rape in Delhi, the rights watchdog said the authorities had to become more sensitive towards victims. "Children who bravely complain...

-The Hindu FIR filed under IT Act; six suspects identified Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Tuesday the police would act tough on the “handful of morons” abusing and harassing girl members of the Valley’s musical bands, even as the first criminal case was registered under the Information Technology Act and six of the suspects were identified. “We’ll leave no stone unturned to ensure that every one of them is...