“It is only the legislature which can abolish the death penalty and not the courts. As long as the death penalty exists in the statute book, it has to be imposed in some cases, otherwise it will tantamount to repeal of the death penalty by the judiciary,” the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while confirming the death sentence on an accused for burning to death his wife and three children. A...

-The Times of India   The finance ministry is devising a voluntary tax disclosure scheme that could provide amnesty to people who have stashed unaccounted money in tax havens and other jurisdictions abroad by charging them a "levy". Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, after a meeting with industry captains recently, activated a committee on black money set up last year to work out a scheme on voluntary disclosure. This scheme will allow corporates and...

Have you heard of the Yangtze River Dolphin? For the longest time, it used to be found along 1,700 kilometres of the middle and lower reaches of the mighty Chinese river. The Baiji, as it is known, was white finned, a little over two metres long, had poor eyesight and relied mainly on sonar for navigation. A few decades ago, as populations along the river grew, as shipping traffic rose,...

-IANS   Civil rights campaigners in Manipur are upset with the mainstream media for blowing up activist Anna Hazare's anti-graft fast that entered its sixth day on Sunday and ignoring the over decade-long hunger strike by Irom Chanu Sharmila against rights violations by the security forces in the region. "There is a general sense of feeling that we, the people of the northeast, have always been neglected, discriminated, and looked down upon by...

-The Hindu   Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it simply: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The death penalty is the ultimate cruel punishment. Abolitionists tend to advance two main reasons why it must go: it does not deter crime; and, as justice systems around the world are flawed, there is more than a possibility that someone...