A social audit on the working of the ban on child labour in the domestic and hospitality sectors reveals a sorry state of affairs. LIKE any normal child, Illyas from Varanasi, a 13-year-old, wanted to go to a regular school and become an important man some day. But poverty forced him to start working at an eatery for Rs.200 a day so that he could feed his younger siblings. He,...
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The Crimson Brief by Raman Kirpal
RAJINDER SACHAR is one of India’s renowned civil rights activists. A former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Sachar has done pioneering work in enabling a legal framework to assist hundreds who stand accused by the police across India for waging war against the State, many of them with little or dubious evidence. Though 87 years old, Sachar continues to work tirelessly with one of India’s key rights groups,...
More »Men of letters, unmoved readers by P Sainath
Suicide notes in Vidarbha are at times addressed to the Prime Minister, the desperate last cries of voices that went unheeded when alive. Seeking authenticity for his letter to the Prime Minister and the President, Ramachandra Raut composed it with care on Rs.100 non-judicial stamp paper. Then he added a few more addressees, including his village sarpanch and the police, in the hope that it got home someplace. Then he...
More »Seven sisters' demand for separate time zone gains momentum by Sanghamitra Baruah
For years, they have been waking up early and starting late. But India's northeast, which sees sunrise almost two hours before Mumbai, has decided it's time to set the clock right. The region's demand for a separate time zone has never been more vociferous April is usually the cruelest month for India's northeastern states. Cyclonic storms lash the region with vengeance and rip apart homes and hopes. But in all...
More »For proximate and speedy justice by KK Venugopal
While the Supreme Court should become a Constitutional Court, the setting up of Courts of Appeal, each comprising 15 judges divided into five benches, for the four regions of the country will prove to be a real boon to litigants. Things had come to a pass in the Supreme Court of India, when Justice E.S. Venkataramiah in P.N. Kumar v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi, (1987) 4 SCC 609 relegated the...
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