On the night of June 21, around 10 p.m., the police of West Bengal’s Hooghly district descended on Tata Motors’ half-built Singur plant and threw out the private guards there. In about half an hour, the new government in West Bengal, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, took over the 997 acres that had proved to be the Waterloo of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and its allies. Earlier,...
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‘Never let school interfere with your education ' by P. Sainath
“Freedom from fear” and “Punishment-free zone” read the slogans on the school walls. These signify the end of corporal punishment. They take on a different meaning, though, when schools are occupied by the police, as they are around Dhinkia and Govindpur, the villages resisting the State's takeover of their farmland for Posco's mega power and steel project ( The Hindu , July 13-14). Children here grabbed national attention when they joined...
More »Court order goes against Doctrine of Separation of Powers: Centre by J. Venkatesan
The Centre, while seeking to recall/modify the July 4 Supreme Court order on the black money issue, has disputed the finding that certain admissions and concessions were made by the government counsel during the course of hearing of the petition filed by the former Union Law Minister, Ram Jethmalani. On July 15, the Centre filed an application for recall of the order (briefly published on July 16). According to the application...
More »SC rebuts activism charge
-The Telegraph The Supreme Court has criticised those who raise “the bogey of judicial activism or overreach” every time the courts try to enforce welfare laws. A two-judge bench said the courts do not exceed their jurisdiction by hearing public interest litigations filed by NGOs and social activists on behalf of the poor and illiterate. Rather, by doing so, the courts fulfil a mandate laid down in the Constitution’s chapter on...
More »Judiciary taking over executive's functions: Govt to SC by Dhananjay Mahapatra
The Centre on Friday vented its strong opposition to what it termed the judiciary taking over the executive's function and moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of the black money order to oversee a probe that includes alleged hawala operations of Hasan Ali Khan and Kashinath Tapuria. "The order completely eliminated the role and denuded the constitutional responsibility of the executive which itself is answerable to Parliament," the UPA government said,...
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