-EPW   Will the blatant discrimination against Muslims in the administration of justice ever end? The word secular was inserted into the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd amendment in 1976; later on, the Supreme Court, in S R Bommai vs Union of India, held (in 1994) that secularism was an integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution. And yet, it has been a long time coming – Indian...

Thin, shy and already balding, his glasses threatening to fall off his nose at every movement, Mohammed Mobashshir Sarwar doesn’t quite look the teen rebel. Yet, at 17, he already has 100 Right to Information (RTI) applications under his belt, all directed at his state-run school, whose management he is now battling in high court for expelling him. Man of a few words he may be, but Sarwar has had no problem...

-PTI The Supreme Court today refused to quash criminal proceedings against former BJP chief Bangaru Laxman for allegedly receiving Rs one lakh bribe from undercover scribes to favour them in a 'fictitious' defence deal.  A bench headed by Justice A K Ganguly refused to interfere in the proceedings of the lower court, which is conducting the trial in the case, and dismissed the plea of the 72-year-old politician.  The court, however, made it...

-Daily Maverick Laws governing citizens’ to know what is happening in their governments have become commonplace over the past decade. But it’s not just South Africans who dread the lack of transparency: a new report from the Associated Press suggests that more than half the countries with “Right to Know” laws do not actually follow them.  In January AP set about testing the efficacy of freedom of information laws in 105 countries...

CHANDRAWAL, India—Satbir Sharma's wife is dead. His family lives in fear. His father's left leg is shattered, leaving him on crutches for life.   Sharma's only hope lies in a new law that gives him the right to know what is happening in the investigation of his wife's death. Most of all, he wants to know what will happen to the village mayor, now in jail on murder charges. He talks quietly, under...