-Scroll.in They complain that the state treats ordinary villagers opposing mining in the Surjagarh forest no different than it does the Maoists. Nestled deep in the Surjagarh forest of Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, Gatta seems a serene village. Most people grow their rice, sell tendu leaves, celebrate with mahua and enjoy the lush overgrowth around them. But a closer look throws up a different picture. Reaching Gatta from Allapally, the nearest town in...

-The Hindu A report on the status of policing in India says that Sikhs, mainly in Punjab reported the highest levels of fear of the police among religious communities. Highlighting the politicisation of police, former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh said during the Ayodhya agitation, he was removed as the police chief for a brief period and “the police was pulverised” as political masters didn’t want them to raise their little finger. The...

-ThePrint.in According to a Common Cause-CSDS report, just 8% of people in UP and 9% in Punjab find performance and perception of police satisfactory. Himachal & Haryana top the list with 71%. New Delhi: The people of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana are rather satisfied with the way their respective police forces function, while Punjab and Uttar Pradesh think they’re awful. According to a report by NGO Common Cause and the Lokniti programme of...

-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...

-TheWire.in A report points at how a large number of Muslims feel they are implicated in terrorism cases, Dalits for petty crimes, and Adivasis for being Maoists. Muslim representation in the police force remains abysmally low whereas the community continues to have a disproportionately high representation in prisons, a report brought out by Common Cause and the Lokniti-Programme for Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has...