-DNA   Contrary to the government claims that the Human Rights violators are punished according to law, an RTI query by a rights group has revealed that the Centre has declined sanction for prosecution in 26 cases under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) while permission is awaited in 16 cases. In a reply to an application under Right to Information Act by Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), the state home...

Act had been criticised for infringing on civil liberties, being arbitrary   The Jammu and Kashmir government has approved amendments in the Public Safety Act (PSA), which had come under criticism for being arbitrary and infringing upon the civil liberties of the people. Official sources said that the amendments were approved during a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah here on Wednesday. The amendment Bill, sources said, would prevent the slapping...

-Kashmir Observer   New Delhi’s claims of the AFSPA not standing in the way of justice for victims of forces’ atrocities in Kashmir have been exposed further by civil society activism squeezing incriminating data out of the government.    With public organisations asserting almost 8000 enforced disappearances among innumerably more Human Rights violations at the hands of the central armed forces and the state police in Kashmir in the past two decades, the state...

-Express News Service   Two prominent members of Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption have dissociated themselves from the group in protest against its overt flirtation with politics, as seen during the Lok Sabha bypoll in Hisar.   Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh, who earned fame working on water conservation in villages in Rajasthan, and P V Rajagopal, a tribal and land rights activist, have decided to quit the core committee, the 26-member panel which...

In the past, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had maintained “there are no Maoists in West Bengal” and that the situation in Jangalmahal region in the State was the result of “infighting among the Marxists,” but the Chief Minister on Saturday lashed out at the rebels, without naming them outright, labelling them “supari killers,” “jungle mafia” and “cowardly goons hiding in the forests.” A little over a year ago, at a...