-Frontline   Swagata Raha, a senior legal researcher (Consultant) at the Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, said the Juvenile Justice Bill, 2015, “incorrectly assumes that children are competent to stand trial as adults”. Currently pursuing Master of Studies in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford, Swagata Raha worked extensively on the campaign against the Juvenile Justice Bill and has written extensively...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Congress student wing has publicly criticised the passage of the juvenile justice amendment act and promised to take the matter up with the parent party, which helped pass the bill last week. Under the amended act, now waiting for presidential assent, juveniles aged 16 to 18 can be tried as adults for heinous crimes, a provision children's rights activists have condemned as draconian. "We are against the passage...

-The Indian Express NCRB figures also show that over the last ten years, the juvenile crime rate fluctuated marginally from 1% in 2004-05 to 1.2% in 2008 and down to 1% in 2010. As the government prepares to implement the amended Juvenile Justice Act and consider those above 16 who commit “heinous crimes” as adults, it will do well to revisit its own data for some crucial reminders. Data from the National...

-The Hindu A complex picture emerges from the analysis of a year of Mumbai sessions court rulings on sexual assault: false cases foisted by parents, wide variation in the sentences, societal prejudices and vulnerabilities at play, and a tendency for investigating high-profile cases with greater rigour Over half of all sexual assault cases decided by Mumbai’s sessions courts in 2015 involved either parents filing cases against young couples who had eloped, or...

-The Indian Express The juvenile justice bill, to be debated by the Rajya Sabha today, confuses revenge with justice Our Parliament is on the verge of committing a heinous crime against its youngest citizens as it discusses the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014 in the Rajya Sabha today. If it passes this bill, it would be placing a sword of Damocles over every Indian born after 1997, including...