A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Sudershan Reddy and Surinder Singh Nijjar passed orders in two politically sensitive cases this week.These orders have caused much controversy over the role of judiciary in constitutional cases. In the first of the two cases, Nandini Sundar v State of Chattisgarh, the judges held that the armed deployment of ill-trained, uneducated and poor tribal youths in combat operations against Naxals by appointing them as...

-The United Nations   Millions of women worldwide continue to experience injustice, violence and inequality in their homes, the workplace and public life, according to a new United Nations report that calls on governments to take urgent action to ensure real equality between the sexes. “Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice” is the first major report by UN Women, the agency launched earlier this year to spearhead the world...

Chhattisgarh must disarm SPOs, probe their alleged crimes In a blow to both the Chhattisgarh government and the Centre, the Supreme Court has declared illegal and unconstitutional the deployment of tribal youth as Special Police Officers — either as ‘Koya Commandos', Salwa Judum or any other force — in the fight against the Maoist insurgency, and ordered their immediate disarming. The ruling — issued on Tuesday by Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and...

-The Hindu   Under fire for describing homosexuality as “unnatural,” Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday sought to clarify and explain the extempore remarks he made at a conference the previous day. Mr. Azad said he had been quoted “totally out of context” by a section of the media, which reported him as saying that men having sex with men was a “disease.” A review of the video recording of his...

Vinod Rai’s searing honesty in his job as the country’s CAG has the government in many a bind CAG Catch 1     2G Spectrum, 2010     The CAG audit over a six-year period from 2003 finds loopholes in the implementation of norms, leading to DoT allocating spectrum at 2001 prices. Estimated loss to exchequer: the now-household figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.     Outcome Former telecom minister A. Raja, MP Kanimozhi, telecom and...