-IndiaSpend.com Mumbai & Bengaluru: No Indian state is fully compliant with 14-year-old Supreme Court directives for police reforms, an analysis by the international non-profit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has found. Of the 28 states, only two--Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh--were partially compliant with the five binding directives included in the analysis. All the other states have failed to comply, as per CHRI’s report. The set of seven directives, aimed at kick-starting...

-Mid-Day.com A report analysing impact of the lockdown on education in Maharashtra reveals why poor students, who do not have access to smartphones or data, have been worst hit A report published this week by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), analysing the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the state of education in Maharashtra, indicated that digital classrooms and compulsory Examinations for final year college students, were doing more harm...

-The Telegraph The party accused the govt of either not conducting any tests or not handing out appointment letters in years The Congress has accused the government of collecting hundreds of crores as employment Examination fees although it has either not conducted any tests or not handed out appointment letters in years. The Congress on Friday reminded the government that millions of families have been subjected to extreme miseries because of the massive...

-Down to Earth The ordinance does not expressly define ‘extraordinary circumstances’: Such legislative ambiguity makes one question the entire exercise of introducing this particular provision As the Union government announced massive reforms as part of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) relief package, attention went to three agriculture sector ordinances related to farmers’ trade, contract farming and amendments in the Essential Commodities Act. While each of the three ordinances have far-reaching implications from legal...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...