-TheWire.in Police across the country continue to use the law to book people for making offensive comments on Social Media, blissfully unaware of its deletion from the IT Act. Last November, police in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh arrested 25-year-old Sattar Khan for allegedly making offensive remarks about the RSS chief on Social Media. Reacting to pressure from angry protestors, the police filed a criminal case against Khan. But months later, the police were...

-The Hindu If the data on juvenile crime are anything to go by, the annual reports of the National Crime Records Bureau cannot be taken at face value. The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual round-up of crime statistics has in recent years been the subject of extensive media coverage. The parsing of the official data, however, tends to be a superficial exercise, focussing on the big numbers instead of the minutiae. Numbers...

Access to land and its resources is important since it determines the extent of poverty and deprivation one faces. Historically tribal populations and other traditional forest dwellers did not enjoy any legal entitlement such as ownership rights or user rights of the forest lands where they had been living since ages, both communally and individually. The Forest Rights Act (FRA) is, thus, seen as a progressive legislation that attempted to...

-Livemint.com Labour unions are reinventing their strategy to stay relevant in today’s world New Delhi: Ajitesh Pandey, a law student in Calcutta University, is excited about the 2 September strike called by labour unions. With almost child-like enthusiasm, the member of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), has been sharing pictures, slogans, and details related to the protest with his friends and colleagues. Pandey’s excitement reflects a surprising vibrancy in how unions...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: An inter-ministerial panel is likely to discuss on Tuesday a draft bill prepared by the consumer affairs ministry which seeks to punish celebrities who endorse products that are substandard or make misleading claims. The stringent provisions in the bill include a fine of Rs 10 lakh and jail of up to two years for a first offence by celebrities. For subsequent offences, the draft bill provides a fine...