-PTI India's human rights record in 2011 got a thumbs down from a leading global rights group for its "failure" to protect vulnerable communities and rapped the government for custodial killings, police abuses, including torture. Human Rights Watch also criticised the Indian government for its inaction in repealing the controversial armed forces act and for remaining silent on the "gravest abuses" in countries like Syria. In its World Report 2012, Human Rights Watch...

-IANS   Custodial killings, police abuse including torture, and failure to implement policies aimed at protecting vulnerable communities marred India's record in 2011, according to the Human Rights Watch World Report. The global report released on Monday pointed out that immunity for abuses committed by security forces also continued, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, the northeast, and areas facing Maoist insurgency. However, the report found that killings by the Border Security Force (BSF)...

-Greater Kashmir   RTI activists from north Kashmir's Singhpora village on Thursday alleged Sarpanchs and Panchs were harassing them for seeking information about the public works carried out in the area.  “There have been a very few works carried out by the concerned Panchs and Sarpanchs in the area. In Harinara village very few works were carried out. They either divert works or cancel them as per their own wishes,” a delegation...

While Jammu and Kashmir government makes tall claims about the implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act, on the contrary its departments are not furnishing the mandatory information to the State Information Commission (SIC), thereby affecting monitoring and reporting of the law. Informed sources told Greater Kashmir that majority of the administrative and field departments of the state are defaulters vis-a-vis submission of the quarterly and annual information to SIC on...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in tribal areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....