Rights activists and unions have dubbed “racist” and “class-specific” a Tamil Nadu police exercise of enumerating workers, college students and tenants from other states based on their ethnicity and language. The drive comes after five alleged bank robbers were shot dead in Chennai last month. Documents found with them suggested they were from Bihar and Bengal. Some of the activists are planning to challenge the count in court saying it goes against...

Even legislation championed by Sonia Gandhi can get stuck in bureaucratic limbo—witness the fate of amendments that needed to be made quickly to a law that seeks to safeguard the rights of tribals. The combined backing of the National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by Congress president Gandhi, and the political leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government hasn’t been enough to put in place new guidelines meant to remove the...

-The United Nations   The annual flagship report of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will this year focus on the challenges and disadvantages faced by children worldwide who live in cities and other urban areas.   More than a billion children, or over half the global population of minors, are now estimated to live in urban areas, according to UNICEF, which is releasing the report entitled “The State of the World’s Children 2012”...

The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...

The Law Commission recommends making Section 498A, IPC, compoundable, and women's groups say that would affect women's interests. A REPORT of the Law Commission of India on “Compounding of (IPC) Offences” suggesting that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which prescribes punishment for a husband or his relatives for subjecting a woman to cruelty, be made compoundable with the permission of the court, is fraught with several implications. The report...