-The Times of India Three Rajiv Gandhi assassinshave opposed the execution of the death sentence awarded to them by pointing to the 12 year-lag between the Supreme Court's confirmation of the high court's order to send them to the gallows and the rejection of the mercy petition by President. Behind this argument, it turns out, is a well-organized CAMPAign by LTTE cadres, sympathizers and human rights groups opposed to death penalty...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-The Hindu Gandhi’s country must set an example by abolishing capital punishment, says Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer The President has dismissed the mercy petitions of four of Veerappan’s associates who had been sentenced to death. They should not hang. I appeal to the authorities to remove the death sentence from the statute book. Every state execution amounts to nothing but murder. The people of India must rise against such grave crimes by the...

-The Hindu Hyderabad: The appointment of Information Commissioners in Andhra Pradesh was going on in PPP (public-private partnership) mode despite the public protest and the Governor’s opposition, former Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh remarked here on Sunday. Speaking at the fourth national convention of the National CAMPAign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) here, he said the Information Commission in AP was now packed with politicians against the spirit of the...

-Tehelka Feminism cannot be a moving force if it is not grounded in the lived experiences of its patrons I HAVE always been conscious of the inequalities of gender and caste. A series of matriarchal, independent women in my family had been asserting and stretching their roles in society even before I was born. My great grandmother, Neelamma, set aside her caste prejudices to get her younger daughter — my grandmother...