-Newsclick.in The government asked the ineligible individuals to surrender their ration cards by May 20 or face disciplinary actions. Lucknow: The scheme of free ration distribution is believed to have had a tremendous impact on the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Buoyed by its victory, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in the first decision on the second day of his second consecutive term, declared that his...

-India Spend/ Scroll.in While the total number of prison inmates rose by 1% between 2019 and 2020, the number of undertrial inmates increased by nearly 12% Three in four prisoners in India’s jails are under trial, according to government data for the year 2020, the latest year for which such data is available. This is the highest share of undertrial detainees in prison since at least 1995, the earliest year for which...

-The Telegraph The police as the arbiters of communication For a country with serious challenges to tackle, the amount of time and energy of government agencies and courts that is now spent on offence-taking and conspiracy-chasing borders on the ludicrous. Through 2021, the police in various parts of the country sought to criminalize news gathering as well as social media expressions, registering first information reports indiscriminately under various sections of the Criminal...

-Scroll.in Such methodology to gauge the effectiveness of policing has only resulted in underreporting of cases and institutionalising dishonesty. We are happy to blame the politicians and the government for the various shortcomings of India’s criminal justice system but are reluctant to understand certain underlying reasons for these and focus on possible solutions. Two of these problems are corruption and general unfriendly behaviour in the police department. Most citizens know how difficult it...

-Press release by Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) dated 30 July, 2021 NEW DELHI: “During 2020 at least 228 journalists (including two cases against media houses) were targeted. These included 12 female journalists who had faced physical violence, online harassment/ threats and cases including under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) of 1967”, stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of the Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) while releasing India...