-The Times of India The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is a dream long deferred, and now it looks like the courts can barely conceal their impatience. A Supreme Court bench, hearing a case on a Hindu woman's petition on inheritance, was recently stirred into ordering an examination of practices like polygamy and triple talaq in Muslim personal law, which it declared "injurious to public morals". The Centre is already on a deadline...
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RTI empowers the citizen, but threats can make Act opaque -Shailesh Gandhi
-Hindustan Times After a decade of the implementation of the national Right To Information (RTI) Act, it is necessary to reflect on some of its key achievements and the threats it faces. It has spread across the country, and there is no district that has not received RTI applications. It has empowered the ordinary citizen to get respect as an individual from the government and its officials. Citizens are becoming the monitors...
More »Are one per cent of Indians using RTI?
-The Hoot A decade of RTI, Part II---How many Indians are using their right to information? Studies suggest that the figure of users has yet to cross one per cent of the population in a given year, but there could be substantial under-reporting. More than eight million Right to Information applications are being made now, 10 years after the law was introduced. That’s the figure that was given by Aruna Roy of...
More »No food for cultivators -Devinder Sharma
-DNA When it comes to farmers, the government has precious little to offer The monsoon season is over. With 14 per cent shortfall in the amount of rains, and with nearly 39 per cent of the cropped area in the country hit by a crippling drought, I was expecting the Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan to announce a series of monetary benefits and exemptions in credit repayments for farmers....
More »India downplays US report on religious freedom
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India on Thursday made light of a US Congressional report on International Religious Freedom 2014 which said India witnessed "religiously motivated killings, arrests, riots and coerced religious conversions". "The report is internal to the US administration. It is widely acknowledged that the Constitution of India guarantees equal religious, social, political rights to all its Citizens including minorities,'' said MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup. "Any abuses are handled by...
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