Eminent journalist Dileep Padgaonkar who headed the group of three Central interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir said on Thursday that the thrust of their report was to empower the people of Jammu and Kashmir so that they were able to exercise their civil and political rights in full measure. The 176-page report of the group of Central interlocutors was uploaded on the website of Union Home Ministry on Thursday, seven months...

-PTI The Symbiosis College in Pune has deferred a seminar on Kashmir after objections by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and an organisation representing displaced Kashmiri Pandits. Representatives of ABVP, the student wing of BJP, and Panun Kashmir, who met the college authorities on Monday, said the proposed screening of a documentary, "Jashn-e-Azadi", at the seminar, "Voices of Kashmir", projected the militants in the Valley as "heroes" and was critical of...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...

Victims have not forgotten the following brutal tragedies in the life of independent India, even if the State and political parties may pretend to have. 1984—Delhi: On October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for ‘Operation Bluestar’. For the next three days, as Doordarshan telecast the lying in state of her body, over 3000 Sikhs—men and boys—were burnt alive while policemen, politicians and...

The Centre is “determined” to make both State governments and individuals responsible for law and order “accountable” in cases of communal violence, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday. He was responding to a question on the criticism of the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's Working Group, by Leader of the Opposition...