In Maharashtra, attacks on citizen-activists have increased with the greater use of RTI; four activists have been killed in the last seven months IN the late 1970s, a woman named Shobha Shirodkar was the victim of a hit-and-run in Mumbai. It was no accident. It was a case of murder because Shobha, who was the principal of a prestigious school in the city, had opposed the land mafia and was believed...

The Union Cabinet approves a new Bill to protect whistle-blowers, but there is concern whether its provisions will amount to much. ON March 22, a special court in Patna pronounced three persons guilty in the murder of Satyendra K. Dubey, a civil engineer from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He was shot dead on November 29, 2003, for blowing the whistle on corrupt practices in the Golden Quadrilateral Project in Bihar....

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has held that there is no legal sanctity attached to verdicts of village panchayats, including khaps, that touch personal lives of couples, even if the community accepts such decisions. Handing out this ruling in a case where a village panchayat in Uttar Pradesh had granted divorce to an Army man from his teacher wife, a Bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and B S...

Former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Gegong Apang was on Tuesday arrested by sleuths of a Special Investigation Cell (SIC) probing the Rs. 1000-crore scam in Public Distribution System (PDS) in Arunachal Pradesh. Mr. Apang was arrested outside the SIC office and later produced before a court of Special Judge at Lakhimpur in Assam. The court remanded him to seven days in police custody. Mr. Apang has been booked under...

Delhi has reconfirmed its position as the worst city in the country as far as women’s safety is concerned. Last year, with 452 rapes, it emerged as the most unsafe. With 178 rape cases, Mumbai had 278 fewer rapes than Delhi, but 112 more than neighbouring Pune’s 66 and a lot more than Kolkata’s 40 — something that’s come as a shocker for a city that prides itself in being...