Three affected villages did not receive copies of the environmental impact assessment report  Despite it being Akshaya Trithiya, more than 1,000 people turned up for the hearing About 2,300 people have lost land to the project Angry protests stalled a Public Hearing of the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project (JNPP) at Madban village in Maharashtra on Sunday. Only after officials acknowledged their mistake of not providing copies of the environmental impact assessment (EIA)...

Regular dialogue between villagers, doctors and elected representatives has reflected in improved health services in rural parts of the state. The data was collected from 220 villages and 40 primary health centres across fifteen blocks in five districts of the state including Pune. Sathi-Cehat, a state nodal NGO, collected the information under Community Based Monitoring (CBM) of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). "Nine key health services were rated by...

The number of cases in which the totally unconstitutional caste panchayats have openly defied the law of the land by issuing illegal diktats has increased manifold. In Haryana today, rapid capitalist transformation is accompanied by a regressive feudal consciousness. As education and political awareness spread among Dalits, women and backward sections, alongside there is a massive consolidation of caste (khap) panchayats in defence of the status quo. The number of cases...

IN 2005, Gohana in Sonepat district of Haryana witnessed the torching of several Dalit homes by members of upper castes. Now Mirchpur, a village 58 kilometres away and located deep inside Hisar district, has met a similar fate. On April 21, as many as 18 homes belonging to Dalits from the Valmiki community here were set on fire by upper-caste youth over an alleged slight on the part of the...

While the Supreme Court should become a Constitutional Court, the setting up of Courts of Appeal, each comprising 15 judges divided into five benches, for the four regions of the country will prove to be a real boon to litigants.  Things had come to a pass in the Supreme Court of India, when Justice E.S. Venkataramiah in P.N. Kumar v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi, (1987) 4 SCC 609 relegated the...