It is the 21st century version of the classic rabbit and tortoise story. Last weekend, a group of cyclists decided to race against Jet-BlueAirlines in Los Angeles when one of its busiest highways was shut down for construction and renovation. To help people get across the town fast, JetBlue started a special flight service. A group of cyclists decided to challenge the airlines to a bikeversus-airlines race. It turned out...

The Supreme Court on Friday appeared doubtful about pressing the government to give cash “incentives” under a centrally sponsored scheme to poor women pregnant from child marriages, saying this may be seen as “encouraging” the social crime. “If Government of India gives incentives, will it not mean that it is encouraging child marriages.... We cannot give approval to child marriages,” a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma observed. The...

A recent study on the role of statutory institutions in protection of Dalit rights in Rajasthan, which prompted the State Government to take action in 31 cases of atrocities against members of Scheduled Castes, is proposed to be replicated in five other States in the country. Civil rights activists and Dalit victims of violence and discrimination highlighted the study's findings and deliberated on the specific instances investigated by it at an...

-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court has criticised those who raise “the bogey of judicial activism or overreach” every time the courts try to enforce welfare laws. A two-judge bench said the courts do not exceed their jurisdiction by hearing public interest litigations filed by NGOs and social activists on behalf of the poor and illiterate. Rather, by doing so, the courts fulfil a mandate laid down in the Constitution’s chapter on...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...