-The Indian Express RTI Act needs to be protected against attempts to dilute it. RTI activists must be made less vulnerable In April, the government of India proposed amendments to the RTI Act, one of the most empowering pieces of legislation inherited from the UPA era. The most controversial amendment pertained to Rule 12. It would allow the withdrawal of an application in case of the applicant’s death, making the job of...

-Livemint.com 2016 recorded the lowest suicides in the farm sector in over two decades, shows data shared by agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh New Delhi: There is little doubt that 2016 was replete with positive data on agriculture sector—a normal monsoon, record production of grains and perishables, and a rebound in the farm sector growth after consecutive years of drought-induced dismal performance. However, this positive data failed to lift farmers’ sentiment because...

-Scroll.in They are rarely produced in court and scarcely given legal aid, finds Amnesty International India. On Wednesday, Amnesty International India published a damning report on the state of undertrials in the country. The report, Justice Under Trial: A Study of Pre-trial Detention in India, analysed data available with the National Crime Records Bureau and records collected by the human rights organisation from the country’s 500-odd district and central jails through...

-The Indian Express At present no centralised data is available on lynchings, which have been reported in cases of theft, witchcraft, and recently over child theft and cow-protection. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), that tabulates and analyses crime data from across the country every year, is planning to now collect detailed data on lynchings as well. If this is approved by the Union Home Ministry, the NCRB will collect country-wide...

-Press Trust of India “Just because some false cases are filed, we cannot deny justice to real victims,” the court observed. New Delhi: Justice cannot be denied to the victims of sexual offences for lack of medical evidence and a woman’s oral testimony can be relied upon, the Delhi High Court said on Wednesday. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said the amendments made in the...