A "typographical error" in a Chhattisgarh police affidavit before the Supreme Court could turn the location of a crucial arrest from Station Road to something as different as "Mahindra Hotel". Or so it seems from the controversial Raipur session's court verdict holding human rights activist Binayak Sen guilty of conspiracy to commit sedition. In it's December 24 judgment, the trial court overlooked the improbability of such a drastic change resulting from...

Sixteen-year-old Rubina Khatun (name changed) of Jinarditola village in Malda's Kaliachak-II had an affair with Raisuddin, a local boy. Although the affair did not meet with approval from her parents, especially as her Class X exam was near, she was obstinate. On October 16, Rubina's father, Saifuddin Sk, lodged a complaint with the local Police Station, alleging that Raisuddin had taken his daughter away. A police search did not yield any...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

West Bengal businessman says he was illegally detained and interrogated for five days before his arrest was staged on May 6, 2007 Defence maintains that all evidence was planted by Chhattisgarh police Discrepancy in SLP is a typo, says investigating officer S.S. Rajpoot At 10.45 a.m. on May 1, 2007 Pijush Guha checked into the Mahindra Hotel here and vanished. The hotel register indicates that he checked out at 8.45 p.m. the same...

In the end, Gangula Tadangi succumbed to tuberculosis. The Kondh Adivasi’s life could have been saved if he had made it to the hospital on time. But he was in judicial custody at Koraput district jail in southern Odisha for allegedly “waging war against the Indian State”. During his last moments, Tadangi, 25, is said to have whispered something in Kondh. But nobody could make out anything because no one...