-PTI RBI says do not expect any compensation for theft or burglary of valuables in safe deposit boxes of public sector banks as the locker hiring agreement absolves them of all liability New Delhi: Do not expect any compensation for theft or burglary of valuables in safe deposit boxes of public sector banks as the locker hiring agreement absolves them of all liability. This bitter truth was disclosed in an RTI response...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A group of retired bureaucrats have written an open letter ruing the "rising authoritarianism and majoritarianism" that is choking dissent, and urging public authorities to take "corrective action" to "reclaim and defend the spirit of the Constitution". "Argumentation and discussion about different perspectives - the lifeblood not only of institutions of learning but of democracy itself -are being throttled," the letter says. "Disagreement and dissent are considered seditious...

-Livemint.com IT employees in Tamil Nadu, represented by unions, are seeking intervention of courts and state governments to prevent the companies’ growing penchant for job cuts Chennai: Two unions in Tamil Nadu, the only state where labour groups have been actively supporting information technology (IT) employees, have become their voice in the fight against layoffs in the industry. The IT employees’ wing of the New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF) on Tuesday sought the...

-Frontline Cattle traders see a nexus between cow vigilantes and animal rights organisations in Delhi, where vigilantes unleashed violence in April. In the past year, 40,000 animals seized by them were not returned to the owners, and traders believe that they were sold. A PLANNED and brutal assault on cattle traders in Kalkaji in Delhi on April 22 by a mob of gau rakshaks (cow protectors) has brought to the fore...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...