Important draft legislation was recently unveiled in Rajasthan that would impose serious punishment for ‘witch-hunting’. Getting legislators to sign off on the bill, however, will prove difficult. Over the years, the women’s movement in Rajasthan has had some success in making violence against women into an important political issue. Activists have forced political parties and governments to demonstrate that they are addressing this constituency, which the media has dubbed ‘Mahila Sangathan’....

This essay describes and compares Parliament and the Supreme Court and examines the relationship between them. Parliament may still be a great institution, but its members are no longer great men. How long can a great institution remain great in the hands of small men? The SC has held its place in the public esteem rather better than the Lok Sabha, despite the occasional allegation of financial impropriety. Parliament, the...

The Pune bench of the State Information Commissioner (SIC) has been witnessing a deluge of second appeals. A majority of these appeals, interestingly, have been filed by only a handful of people. Since the establishment of the Pune bench of the SIC in February 2007, 938 second appeals have been filed by 97 individuals. RTI activists claim this habit of filing multiple appeals is a major cause for the rise in pendency...

-The Times of India   The Puri district police on Saturday denied that chairman of the National SC/ST Commission P L Puniya had entered a Kali temple at Ranapada village near Brahmagiri. A section of the media had reported that Puniya had entered the temple, breaking an age-old ban on the entry of Dalits into temples in Puri. IIC (Brahmagiri police station) Debi Prasad Dash said Puniya, along with senior officials of...

-PTI   Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare on Monday accused the office bearers of Congress and Union ministers of intentionally "defaming" the Lokpal movement and emerging NGO sector in the country. "They (the government) making lot many allegations, including the so-called hidden support and political agenda designed by RSS and BJP, is a sheer humiliation of sentiments of the common Indians. They are trying to demoralise and confuse agitators fighting against corruption and...