-Thomson Reuters Foundation NEW DELHI - A shortage of specialised legal care and protection means that victims of trafficking and bonded labour in India fail to get justice and perpetrators continue to buy and sell people with impunity, a report said on Monday. The study by the Freedom Fund and Thomson Reuters Foundation said charities on the frontline of anti-trafficking efforts were unable to support victims to pursue their cases in...

Social justice is one of the basic pillars of democracy. But when it comes to livelihood security and socio-economic status of various communities in rural areas, persons belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) lag far behind the upper caste population. This has been revealed in a recent National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) report entitled: Employment and Unemployment Situation among Social Groups in India...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Constitution bench hearing on the controversial National Judicial Appointments Commission today got entangled in "conflict of interest" issues for the second time in two weeks, with presiding judge J.S. Khehar being asked to recuse. Justice Khehar is in line to take over as Chief Justice of India in January 2017 after Justice T.S. Thakur attains superannuation. Last week, Justice A.R. Dave had been forced to recuse on...

-The Hindu The government has refused RTI requests for information on the decision-making process on amendments to Land Acquisition Bill. On January 17, Chitrangada Choudhury, a Fellow with the Open Society Institute, filed an RTI request with the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), seeking documents, file notings and correspondence between the MoRD and other authorities relating to any proposed amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the NDA’s December 2014 ordinance. Two...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday slammed the Centre for being insensitive towards protection of child rights and for its reluctance to take effective steps to recover missing children. It also criticized the government for falling foul of the law by its inability to set up an advisory board under the Juvenile Justice Act in the last 15 years. With around 15 children disappearing every hour in...