-Down to Earth Death and injury prevention get little attention To address the problem of road safety, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has published a draft Road Transport and Safety Bill for public comments and suggestions. If passed by Parliament, it would replace the existing Motor Vehicles Act of 1988. While the bill should be aiming for zero mortality, it has set a target to save 200,000 lives in...
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Undertrials who have served half of their maximum terms to be freed -Pradeep Thakur
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In what could lead to freedom for thousands of undertrials languishing in jail for years on end, the Narendra Modi government has initiated steps to release prisoners who have served at least half the sentence they would have been awarded if convicted, irrespective of the progress of their trial. However, this largesse will not extend to those who have been held for offences which specify...
More »Normalising sexual violence? -Ratna Kapur
-The Hindu The brutal rape and lynching of two girls in Badaun should shock the collective conscience of all Indians, regardless of their class, caste, religious or ethnic background. But does it? A spate of legal reforms following the protests over the December 16, 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman rejected some of the main recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee that were central to combatting sexual violence. These...
More »India women activists remind Modi of promises-Betwa Sharma
-Al Jazeera Activists and feminists seek implementation of law to check violence against women as new government is sworn in. New Delhi - Two days after Narendra Modi emerged victorious in India's national elections, Kiran battled the heat and crowd to see the man she had voted for in the ancient city of Varanasi. Modi, a leader of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, who took oath as the prime minister of India on...
More »Strengthening India’s rule of law-Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav
-Live Mint Despite its importance, reform of India's legal institutions has been seen as a ‘second order' issue India is a young nation long ruled by old laws-its police, for example, are governed by such colonial-era statutes as the Police Act of 1861, which predates independence by nearly a century. And its expanding economy requires forward-looking regulatory mechanisms to foster markets while curbing crony capitalism. India is also a nation that must...
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