-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The fact that our legal system is skewed against the poor and marginalized is well-known. And to that extent, it's only expected that they get harsher punishment than the rich. But here are figures that tell the full story. A first of its kind study, which has analyzed data from interviews with 373 death row convicts over a 15-year period, has found three-fourths of those given...

-The Indian Express With the spotlight on packaged foods’ failure to clear safety tests, The Indian Express samples 11 states and finds out how ill-equipped and understaffed their labs are. For a processed food market estimated at Rs 7.34 lakh crore by the Annual Survey of Industries, 72 state labs and 68 private ones with National Accrediation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation are conducting tests in India’s 640...

-The Hindu The child’s ‘right to be heard’ has been validated by a UN Convention. It’s time to let children decide when and what kind of labour is right. The debate over children working has been raging for centuries, with policies constantly changing to reflect the attitudes of a given time. During the World Wars, children were allowed to work as they were needed in factories and other services. When the soldiers...

-IPS News BETUL, India- Mamta Bai, 36, distinctly remembers the first time the police came to her village: it was December 2014 and her neighbour, Purva Bai, had just been beaten unconscious by her alcoholic husband, prompting Mamta to make a distress call to the nearest station. Once in the neighborhood, policemen pulled the abusive husband out of his home and asked the village women if they wanted him to be arrested. “Yes,”...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Biochemist Thuppil Venkatesh says he is not surprised by claims of food safety regulators in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi that they have detected lead, a potential toxin to humans, in Maggi noodles. For over a decade, Venkatesh, professor emeritus at St John's Medical College, Bangalore, has been trying to warn the country about what he says are dangerous levels of lead in the environment that may slip into...