-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a chilling reminder of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Uttar Pradesh government on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the recent riots forced over 40,000 people to flee 94 villages in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts, where 44 people were killed and places of worship of Muslims and Hindus extensively damaged. Responding to the apex court's queries, the Akhilesh Yadav government submitted a report from the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Communal riots in Uttar Pradesh are always deadlier than the rest of the country with more people likely to die in a communal incident in UP than in any other state. Home ministry data on communal violence across the country between 2005 and 2013 (till August) shows that in UP, one in every four incidents is fatal. The national average stands at one death for seven incidents....

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...