-Rediff.com   Police personnel involved in fake encounter killings should be awarded death sentence and hanged, the Supreme Court has said. A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and C K Prasad said that police personnel as custodians of law are expected to protect people and not eliminate them as contract killers. "Fake encounter killings by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder, which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence...

CGNet Swara in Chhattisgarh is a mobile radio platform that has helped bring tribal issues to national attention. MAHADEV SINGH, a Baiga tribal person, hails from a village situated atop a forested hill near Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. While most of the neighbouring villages are electrified and welfare schemes from the government reach them to an extent, Mahadev's village has lost out in this regard owing to its inaccessibility. Mahadev and his...

-The Times of India   The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure security of its officials who would start probe into the alleged financial irregularities into the National Rural Health Mission. The CAG office has writen a letter to UP chief secretary and the principal secretary, health and family welfare, expressing concern over the security of its probe team, comprising 50 auditors in addition to...

A court judgment delivered earlier this year holds important lessons for those engaged in investigating and fighting terrorism. Questioning the methods of terror investigation is always a challenge because it is so easily seen as defending the enemies of the nation. The exercise is monumentally difficult after a benumbing bomb attack — especially if it has been judged to be the work of a home-grown Islamist organisation. The raging anger at this...

Nandkumar Naitam is relieved after a month of “torturous” anxiety. “I thought it over again and again,” the 20-year-old tribal youth says. “I thought that if I couldn’t get a rifle, I’d pick up my traditional weapon, the bow-and-arrow.” It was a desperation that Nandu, as he is fondly called, shared with his 5,000-odd fellow special Police Officers (SPOs), who till a month ago formed the Chhattisgarh government’s frontline against the Maoists...