On February 9, 2010, the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Jairam Ramesh, imposed an indefinite moratorium on the introduction of Bt Brinjal in India. It is necessary and desirable to quote the order verbatim. It reads as follows: It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt Brinjals till such time independent scientific studies establish, to...

A Delhi court has ordered a first information report (FIR) and criminal investigations into allegations that the agriculture ministry had allegedly paid trumped-up bills worth nearly Rs. 14 lakh as legal fees to its standing counsel. The court said there was evidence to suggest a nexus between the counsel and ministry officials to cause loss to “public exchequer” through “fraud” and “misappropriation of funds”. The complaint, moved by the All India Federation...

The exploitation of migrant construction workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

The Supreme Court has taken steps to lay down a code for media reporting. This attempt at prior restraint on the media is a dangerous move with precedent from authoritarian polities. In a context where the judiciary has been lax in defending the media from attacks which seek to curb its freedom, such unilateral moves will not remedy bad reporting but rather make conditions worse for the media to play...

A local court on Monday convicted Samajwadi Party state president and MLA Abu Asim Azmi and four others of making inflammatory speeches to incite communal violence during a rally in 2000. Metropolitan magistrate Sanjashree Gharat of the Mazgaon court sentenced Azmi, Waqarunnissa Ansari, Lalbahadur Singh, Ehsanullah Khan and Ali M Shamsi to two years' imprisonment. When the five sought time to appeal in the sessions court, the magistrate allowed suspension of...