The Supreme Court's threat to award death penalty for fake encounters will make little difference to the impunity enjoyed by security forces. For, its own stay order in another case comes in the way of any murder case being booked against killers in uniform. The stay order, passed two years ago by a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, has rolled back an attempt made...

PUNE: Far from taking exemplary action against the policemen who fired at protesting farmers killing four of them, the Pune rural police on Thursday turned the tables and arrested five farmers for attacking the police and damaging their property. They were also charged with criminal conspiracy. Worse, the two officers who were seen firing at farmers running away from the police in television clippings are now facing a routine government...

-IANS   The Karnataka Lokyaukta (ombudsman) police Wednesday registered a first information report (FIR) against scam-hit former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa in a graft case related to a contract in an irrigation project. The FIR (No.33/1) was filed under section 13(1) of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1994 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on a complaint filed by Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) Y.S.V. Datta in the Lokayukta court against Yeddyurappa and Dhavalagiri...

-IANS   A central team that reviewed fund management under the National Rural Health Mission in Uttar Pradesh found ‘irregularity’ in award of contracts for procuring emergency medical transport services and poor quality of drugs, the Rajya Sabha was informed Tuesday. In a written reply, Minister of State Sudip Bandyopadhyay said Uttar Pradesh has ‘primary responsibility’ for implementing NRHM that aims to provide quality healthcare to people living in remote areas. The central health...

-Rediff.com   Police personnel involved in fake encounter killings should be awarded death sentence and hanged, the Supreme Court has said. A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and C K Prasad said that police personnel as custodians of law are expected to protect people and not eliminate them as contract killers. "Fake encounter killings by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder, which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence...