The Jammu and Kashmir government has for the first time shown willingness to amend or replace the Public Safety Act, which allows detention without trial for up to two years. The move follows Human rights watchdog Amnesty International’s scathing criticism of the government for the law’s extensive use in the state in the past two decades. An Amnesty report, titled “A lawless law”, says that up to 20,000 people, including children, were...

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...

Rights group Amnesty International has criticised a tough Indian law which it says has been used to detain up to 20,000 people without trial in Indian-administered Kashmir. Amnesty urged India to scrap the Public Safety Act (PSA) which allows detention for up to two years without charge. The group also criticised the judiciary for its failure to protect Human rights of the detainees. Kashmir has been gripped by a violent separatist insurgency since...

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International today blamed India’s “failure” to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir for the “mounting discontent” among Kashmiris, virtually echoing separatists and Pakistan. Delhi rejects calls for the plebiscite, saying Kashmir is an integral part of India. Both Pakistan and the separatists say Kashmir is a disputed territory whose status must be determined by its people. Amnesty today released an 82-page report — titled “A Lawless Law”...

India is all set to be part of the global movement to free mentally ill people from chains.   A shameful practice often referred to as a blot on Human rights, mentally ill patients in the southeast Asia region, including India, are chained to poles or their beds in institutions meant to cure them. In the Erwadi tragedy in India in 2001, over 20 people with mental illness were burned to death after...