-The New Indian Express Annual report of women’s Rights panel did not mention how many cases were resovled NEW DELHI: Nearly 55 per cent of complainants from across the country who reached out to the National Commission for Women (NCW) seeking its intervention in various matters, belonged to Uttar Pradesh. These details have come out through the commission’s annual report for 2017-18 that has just been compiled. The complaints by women or their relatives...

-The Hindu It is shocking that a democratic government is seeking to strengthen the colonial-era Indian Forest Act The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was a remarkable piece of expropriation in the name of conservation. The British government carried out one of the largest land expropriations in history, where the Rights to occupy and use forests were transferred from communities with customary and historical property Rights to the colonial Central government. The act...

-Financial Express If ever there was a beautiful word in Indian polity, it shall be none other than ‘poverty’. Existence of poverty, the necessary evil, ensured the Congress and various regional parties win elections after elections through rhetoric, albeit repeatedly but in different forms, and finding a page on their election manifestos. Did any of the ideologically opposite previous dispensations ever knocked the door of the poor man for eliminating the...

-Frontline.in A large proportion of voters who are left out of the electoral rolls despite having valid voter ID cards are Muslims and Dalits. Abdul Rahmat, 28, from Kolkata was shocked and confused when his application for enrolment in the electoral rolls was rejected with the comment “not an Indian citizen”. Born in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, he had moved to the city a decade ago and held a white-collar job with...

-The Telegraph Some clauses of the draft of the Indian Forest Act 2019 are extraordinarily undemocratic Forests are considered planetary resources of great importance: as carbon sinks, as repositories for biodiversity, as effective tools for local climate control, and as a source of timber and related produce. Forests have been dwelling places for people, too. It is important from the point of view of sustainable development that forests be preserved and biodiversity...