Forty five signatures and one demand – end all forms of child labour to implement the Right to Education (RTE) Act in letter and spirit. This was the content of a petition addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The government should ensure that millions of children engaged in child labour were included in the implementation of the RTE Act. With this historic piece of legislation, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation...

Conflicting recollections on Bhopal tragedy highlight need to make old government papers public I was on the last unaffected train out of Bhopal that night, or so I was told. It was the Dakshni Express from Hyderabad to Delhi. There was nothing unusual at the station and next day in Delhi, I went through an entire working day unaware of that night’s news. It was not the age of 24x7 television...

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and eight States for a direction to explain the steps taken to prevent honour killings at the national level and in the respective States. A vacation Bench comprising Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice A.K. Patnaik, after hearing counsel Ravi Kant, issued notice to Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh asking them to respond to the...

They plan to raise bank loans to build their own homes and take up agriculture Landless Dalit families in a Kancheepuram village have used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to prompt the district administration to hand over land that was originally allotted to them several years ago, thanks to the initiative of a grassroots NGO. A total of 106 Dalit families in Alisoor village were allotted 100 sq m...

Honour killings are being reported at an unnervingly quick clip, but what escapes attention is the fast and furious increase in numbers of couples seeking protection, fearing for their lives once they decide to marry. Advocates say the Punjab & Haryana high court receives as many as 50 applications a day from couples seeking protection, a staggering ten-fold rise from about 5 to 6 a day five years ago. Such...