-PTI Activist Binayak Sen on Monday demanded repeal of sedition laws, saying they were being used to "suppress" the voice of the people. "Sedition laws are not benefiting free people in free polity and they should be repealed. The law is being used to suppress the voice of the people," Sen, currently on bail after being convicted on charges of sedition by a Chhattisgarh court for his alleged links to Naxals,...

The state Election Commission will crosscheck its electoral roll data with the database of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) as part of its target of 100 per cent Photo Electoral Roll (PER) in Uttar Pradesh. The details of NREGA beneficiaries and their photographs in the database, wherever available, will be used for updating the PER. The EC recently sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh expressing...

‘Law needed to monitor selection of party candidates' West Bengal ahead of other four States which contested Assembly elections Despite promises of women's participation, mere134 of 1,263 candidates women Thirty-five per cent of the MLAs elected in the recently concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal have criminal cases pending against them as against an average of 33 per cent of those in the four other States that underwent Assembly elections, according to the...

The commission plans to file several cases under the SC & ST Act The battle of Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh's Greater NOIDA area, where violence raged recently over the contentious issue of land acquisition, promises to get bigger. On Thursday, the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes decided to summon the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police of Gautam Budh Nagar district, where the twin villages are located, to seek a...

Set to include them in BPL segment In a step which can have a major bearing on Dalit politics in the country and challenge Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s undisputed hold over her caste people, the Centre is likely to carve out a special Mahadalit category and include them in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) segment. The proposal is expected to come up for discussion before the Union Cabinet on...