-The Pioneer After the withdrawal of quota in departmental promotions, the Dalit employees’ organisations are gearing up for a big agitation against the Samajwadi Party government. They plan to launch their protest by organising a state level conference in the state capital this month. The Arakshan Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (ABSS), an umbrella organisation of Dalit employees unions, has appealed its members to wear black armbands during duty hours to protest against the...

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources, has been a consistent critic of the idea of interlinking rivers (ILR). In this interview, he shares his concerns about the Supreme Court's judgment directing the government to implement the project, and explains why it is deeply flawed. Excerpts In your article in “The Hindu”, you have claimed that the government's stand on the project is ambiguous. The amicus curiae has,...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...

India has persisted in retaining the death penalty, notwithstanding the fact that 139 countries across the world have already abolished it while 150 others have put a moratorium on it. The United Nations passed a resolution on September 20, 2010, appealing to all nations to observe a moratorium on the death penalty if they are not agreeable to passing a legislation abolishing it. That formidable opposition to the death penalty seemed...

Students graduating in law may have to do a stint of compulsory practical training in courts, like the internship that medical graduates have to undergo. Law teachers this newspaper spoke to agreed that such a period of apprenticeship would help new law graduates but argued that it should be kept optional. The original proposal to make legal internship a compulsory part of the five-year LLB course had come from the Chief Justice...