-The Telegraph The government is proposing to make it mandatory for all companies, in the private as well as public sector, to do a religion-based headcount of their workforce in an effort to check discrimination. The minority affairs ministry is planning to bring a law that will require companies to reveal employee details, including religion and caste, under the proposed Equal Opportunity Commission. “This will ensure equal opportunity for all and the government...

-The Hindu Sequence of attacks on “well-known business units” suggests violence was not spontaneous Last week’s violence in Faizabad district during the Durga Puja procession which left two persons dead, several injured and dozens of shops razed, was executed in a planned manner and the targets had been selected, according to a fact-finding team and accounts by victims and eyewitnesses. The fact-finding team of human rights organisation Rihai Manch said the sequence of...

-The Hindu The conviction rate for every kind of crime is in free fall, engendering a breakdown of law that no republic can survive Even criminals, back in 1953, seemed to be soaking in the warm, hope-filled glow that suffused the newly free India. From a peak of 654,019 in 1949, the number of crimes had declined year-on-year to 601,964. Murderers and dacoits; house-breakers and robbers — all were showing declining enthusiasm...

-The Indian Express An IIM-Ahmedabad analysis of education and employment amongst Muslims in the country has concluded that the minority community has a higher perception of “unfairness” and “discrimination” and that Muslims have, in fact, a stronger case for reservations than the Hindu OBCs. Incidentally, a Central government notification in December 2011 to effect 4.5 per cent minority quota in Central educational institutes was stayed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court earlier...

-The Indian Express The Bangladesh High Commission has complained to the Indian government that two Bangladeshi citizens have been implicated in crimes committed in Delhi when they weren’t even in India. The two Bangladeshis, aged 22 and 60, have been held as undertrials in Tihar jail for nearly four and three years respectively. According to documents presented in two Delhi courts, both men arrived in India several months after their alleged crimes...