-The Indian Express On December 26, the house of Abdul Rafeeq was razed by the administration who came looking for suspects in the stone-pelting incident caught on video the previous day. Officially, the demolition was carried out as the structure was allegedly illegal. New Delhi: The manner in which the a house was demolished in Begum Bagh, a Muslim-dominated locality in Ujjain, a day after a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha rally was...

-Outlook India A schoolteacher shot right through the eye, businessmen brothers disappeared, a jewellery shop looted of crores, even politicians murdered…Nitish is fast losing his USP. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may have earned compliments for his administration’s zero-tolerance policy towards crime in his previous three terms—closing the insulting Jungle Raj repeat-phrase that defined the state before his rule. But his latest tenure has thrown up a big challenge on the law...

-The Indian Express Prolongation of these so-called criminal cases is unconscionable, as is forcing vulnerable people into remaining in hotspots of increased infection and fatal risk. Two recent incidents of Stan Swamy and Gautam Navlakha show up the state of our prisons today. Both are undertrial prisoners in the Bhima-Koregaon case. Both had to move the courts for the simplest of necessities. One, to get a sipper cup and a straw because...

-Down to Earth Every day, 54, mostly developed countries give nearly $2 billion in support to their farmers The sites of the farmers’ protests on the borders of Delhi are a microcosm of Indian peasantry — rich and poor, small and big, irrigated and rainfed and supported and not supported. The voices from these sites have now merged into one clarion call: Guarantee government support to farmers by legalising the minimum support...

-The Indian Express If the stated objective behind enacting an anti-slaughter legislation is “preservation of cattle”, that message is clearly not being heeded by farmers. Karnataka has become the latest BJP-ruled state to put a stringent anti-cattle slaughter Bill in motion. On Friday, the state government said that it would bring in an ordinance to implement the provisions of the Bill, which was passed by the Assembly on Wednesday but could not...