The Centre is “determined” to make both State governments and individuals responsible for law and order “accountable” in cases of communal violence, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday. He was responding to a question on the criticism of the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's Working Group, by Leader of the Opposition...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council will send the Working Group's Draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 to the Union Home and Law Ministries within a week to solicit their comments, especially on its “legal dimensions,” NAC sources told The Hindu on Thursday. Once the Centre responds to the draft, the Working Group will revise the Bill and bring it back to the...

A bill drafted by the National Advisory Council to check communal violence seeks to impose greater accountability on public officials in tackling violence or discrimination against vulnerable groups. The council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, today took up the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, prepared by one of its working groups. The council has decided to put the draft bill in the public domain to invite...

Final draft bill on website within a week for public comments NAC hopes Bill will create a “robust accountability system” Government will be obliged to lay down national standards for all provisions for victims After several extensions, and a controversy over the exit of members of its drafting and advisory committees, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC)'s draft Communal & Sectarian Violence Bill is finally ready: it will be presented on Thursday...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...