There is some bad news for the world’s largest democracy. Thanks to the vitiated atmosphere induced by troll attacks on scribes on social media, among other things, the country's World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) ranking has fallen two places to 138th position. Among 180 countries, India ranked 136th last year with a score of 42.94. However, in 2018 it attained 138th position with a score of 43.24 according to the...
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Lawyers voice euthanasia misuse fear -R Balaji
-The Telegraph New Delhi: Eminent advocate K.T.S. Tulsi has decided to take the lead among Indians in penning a living will, but most Lawyers feel that Friday's Supreme Court judgment legalising passive euthanasia is open to misuse in a country notorious for property disputes. "I haven't yet written my living will but shall definitely do so," Tulsi, a Rajya Sabha member, told The Telegraph on Saturday while welcoming the judgment. The court said...
More »'Formalising' the Economy: What's in It for Workers? -Karuna Dietrich Wielenga and Shashank Kela
-TheWire.in The Modi government’s attempts to reshape the economy lie entirely in the financial realm; they come on the back of concerted efforts to strip workers of legal protection in not just the informal sector, but also the formal. The Narendra Modi government has made two major interventions in the economic sphere, demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), with the ostensible aim of expanding the formal sector at the expense...
More »Declared dead and denied food, pension -Piyush Srivastava
-The Telegraph Lucknow: For 18 months since April last year, Phulwasi Devi and 34 other elderly residents of Pipariya village couldn't figure out why they hadn't been receiving their subsidised food grain or old-age pension. It took them an 18km bus ride last Monday to find out, from the district social welfare department office, that they had all been marked "dead" in official records.. The 35 victims, who include 20 women and 30...
More »Big Brother is winning -Pratap Bhanu Mehta
-The Indian Express The enhancement of state powers without control or transparency is not being done against our wishes The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the...
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