-The Times of India This flies in the face of the spate of growing abuses against children. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) - mandated to monitor child rights' violations and armed with quasi-judicial powers - has received only 51 complaints of sexual and physical abuse of children from across the country in the last five years. Even more shocking is that it has filed FIRs in only...

Groups from across India gathered in Delhi recently to assess the Forest Rights Act’s journey since 2006. The law is often dubbed as ‘landmark’ because it ended the age-old illegality surrounding communities living in forest areas by entitling them to individual and community land title. It also went beyond the colonial paradigms of the forest bureaucracy to recognise community efforts at protecting and preserving forests. Numerous groups and individuals working...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: Nearly 284 children were rescued and 55 child traffickers were arrested from various West Bengal-bound trains in the past 24 hours in Bharatpur and Jaipur. These kids were being transported to Bihar and Bengal and as many as 19 out of the 284 were from Jaipur itself. The Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (RSCPCR) officials— with the help of the Jaipur and Bharatpur collectors...

Introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2011, the UPA government’s Food Security Bill is finally going to be discussed in the current (Budget) Session of Parliament. The proposed legislation is now slated to see many additional amendments from the government, following criticism from the States, NGOs and diverse stake-holders working on access to food and child health. Attempt here is to summarise in a Q & A format the...

-The Hindu Kottayam: The former judge of the Supreme Court, K.T. Thomas, who headed the three-member Bench that pronounced the final judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has called for its review as, he said, it would be unconstitutional to implement the ruling now. On May 11, 1999 the Bench of Mr. Justice Thomas, Justice Sayeed Shah Mohammed Quadri and Justice D.P. Wadhwa pronounced the judgment in the appeal by the...