The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council will send the Working Group's Draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 to the Union Home and Law Ministries within a week to solicit their comments, especially on its “legal dimensions,” NAC sources told The Hindu on Thursday. Once the Centre responds to the draft, the Working Group will revise the Bill and bring it back to the...

No one has died of starvation in conflict-hit villages in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, but tribals are 'living with starvation, in great penury and destitution', the Surpeme Court's Special Commissioner Harsh Mander has submitted in his report. In a strong indictment of the state government as well as Left Wing Extremists, the commissioner has reported that everyone – the security forces, naxals and 'vigilante armed civilian groups' — have unleashed unending cycles...

A bill drafted by the National Advisory Council to check communal Violence seeks to impose greater accountability on public officials in tackling Violence or discrimination against vulnerable groups. The council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, today took up the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, prepared by one of its working groups. The council has decided to put the draft bill in the public domain to invite...

Patriarchal societies are part of the problem of altered sex ratios, female infanticide and foeticide. This needs to be acknowledged and changed. India's sex ratio, among children aged 0-6 years, is alarming. The ratio has declined from 976 females (for every 1000 males) in 1961 to 914 in 2011. Every national census has documented a decline in the ratio, signalling a ubiquitous trend. Preliminary data from the 2011 census have recorded...

Final draft bill on website within a week for public comments NAC hopes Bill will create a “robust accountability system” Government will be obliged to lay down national standards for all provisions for victims After several extensions, and a controversy over the exit of members of its drafting and advisory committees, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC)'s draft Communal & Sectarian Violence Bill is finally ready: it will be presented on Thursday...