-TheWire.in The Wire meets families of 16 people who lost their lives in extra-judicial killings by the police on the suspicion of smuggling cows in the Mewat region of Haryana. Nuh (Haryana): On the wintry night of December 6, 2017, as Shareef lay on the bed in his courtyard in Salaheri village in Nuh, flashes of memory from 25 years ago kept disrupting his sleep. He recalled how his friend Aarif was...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A five-judge Supreme Court constitution bench on Wednesday ruled that parliamentary standing committee reports can be examined by courts for evidence evaluation, rejecting the Centre's argument that it would be a breach of parliamentary privileges and an encroachment into the domain of the legislature. The apex court, however, said "admissibility of a parliamentary committee report in evidence does not mean facts stated in the report stand proved", as...

-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...

-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: In an unprecedented move described by industrialist Ratan Tata as ‘earth-shaking’, and which prompted Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take recourse to British author Aldous Huxley, Odisha on Monday provided land rights certificates to 2,000 landless slum dwellers and promised to develop modern urban habitats complete with roads, street lights, parks and playgrounds for them. The initiative is the culmination of the Odisha Land Rights to Slum...

-Bangalore Mirror In Hassan, Kalyanis are being rejuvenated to get water for the parched district When she saw that her district, Hassan, was listed among the 16 permanent drought-prone districts of the state by the Central drought study committee, writer and social worker Rupa Hassan was dismayed. Rupa, who hails from Mysuru and settled in Hassan post-marriage, could not fathom how a green district that has Sakaleshpur of the Western Ghats as...