-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday fined 11 states and a Union territory Rs 2 lakh each for failing to furnish details of welfare measures for destitute widows. Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Mizoram, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli had failed to provide the information to a court-appointed panel. The committee of experts was set...

-The Indian Express Low crime rate numbers often don’t mean citizens are safer, and ‘rape capital’ and ‘crime capital’ could both be unfair assessments. In reports such as the one published by the National Crime Records Bureau last week, the quality of data is important, as is its placement in the right context. New Delhi: “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court was in for a surprise on Monday as it found that Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, mandated no special educational techniques for students suffering from different kinds of impairment and to make them part of mainstream education. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said it defied common sense that students with...

-The Indian Express Government is prioritising savings over MGNREGA and rights of the poor. Rambeti from Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, graphically described the predicament of MGNREGA workers like her in a recent press conference in Delhi. “The government repeatedly states that it will not let us die of starvation. But the truth is, it does not allow us to live either.” That is a terrible evaluation of MGNREGA — a landmark legislation enacted...

-The Hindu The increase in crimes against women must prompt better policing and all-round reform The National Crime Records Bureau data for 2016 on two important aspects, violent crime and crime against women, should prompt State governments to make a serious study of the underlying causes. Not all States are equally affected; Uttar Pradesh and Bihar record the maximum number of murders. The national tally on crimes against women, which includes rape,...