-The Telegraph New Delhi: Police have arrested five activists, including an editor, a professor and a lawyer, on the suspicion of being Maoists, more than six months after an attack by alleged Hindutva groups on Ambedkarities visiting a war memorial near Pune. Those arrested have been booked under several charges, including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Pune police on Wednesday arrested Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) spokesperson Rona Wilson from...

-Hindkisan.com “This amendment is an insult to people who fought hard to secure progressive provisions in the LARR 2013, it weaken people’s power to challenge illegal and unjust forced acquisition of land, and empowers the state and corporations to infringe upon people’s rights over natural resources” read the statement. Various civil society organisations have come together to oppose the recent President’s assent granted to the amendments made in the Andhra Pradesh Land...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has granted anticipatory bail to four people accused under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act two months after ruling against the act's provisions that mandate automatic arrests and prohibit anticipatory bail. Maharashtra-based gender rights activist Trupti Desai, her husband and two others associated with her NGO had been accused of abusing a Dalit by his caste and robbing him in July last year. The...

-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...

-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...