India's Supreme Court has given the government six weeks to explain the circumstances under which a prominent Maoist was killed last year. Cherukuri Rajkumar was acting as an intermediary to set up peace talks between the Maoists and the Indian government when he was shot dead. One judge said the state could not be allowed to kill its own children. Human rights activists alleged the victim, also known as Azad, was killed by...

The trial court judgment holding Binayak Sen guilty of sedition has led to widespread outrage. IN India's legal history, no trial court judgment in a criminal case has perhaps caused as much international outrage as the December 24, 2010, judgment of the Second Additional District and Sessions Judge of Raipur, B.P. Verma, did. In his 92-page judgment, Judge Verma convicted Dr Binayak Sen, the well-known human rights activist and medical...

In post-globalisation India, middle-class heroes are usually entrepreneurs who make a fast buck, stars that glitter brightly and talk glibly, cricketers who hit the ball hard. In an aspirational world of consumer goods, fine dining and malls, values such as service, integrity, simplicity are becoming rare. Perhaps that is why the story of Binayak Sen, the skilled doctor who turned his back on material success to work among the poor...

In the end, Gangula Tadangi succumbed to tuberculosis. The Kondh Adivasi’s life could have been saved if he had made it to the hospital on time. But he was in judicial custody at Koraput district jail in southern Odisha for allegedly “waging war against the Indian State”. During his last moments, Tadangi, 25, is said to have whispered something in Kondh. But nobody could make out anything because no one...

Rights activist Binayak Sen has challenged in Chhattisgarh High Court the life sentence given to him by a local court after being convicted for sedition and links with Maoists, saying his involvement in the alleged crime was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. 58-yer-old Sen''s counsel Mahendra Dubey filed an appeal against his conviction yesterday, contending that after a thorough examination of the lower court''s judgement it has become clear his involvement...