-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court had recently said security forces had no inherent right to shoot people, which suggests that yesterday's killing of the eight Simi operatives by Madhya Pradesh police went against that ruling. The court had held that even if a person was seen carrying weapons in a "disturbed" area, it did not automatically give the security forces the right to shoot him. Even the army had no blanket...

-Hindustan Times Just how many people in India are poor? The question remains unanswered with yet another government panel failing to define an official “poverty line”. After a year and half of work , a 16-member task force headed by NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya has failed to reach a consensus and suggested to the government that another panel of specialists be asked to do the job. HT has a copy of...

-The Hindu Rather than criminalising bribegivers, the objective of combating coercive corruption would be achieved if the government puts in place a grievance redress mechanism The Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), the key legislation which defines what constitutes corruption and prescribes penalties for corruption-related offences, is set to be amended by Parliament. The proposed Bill, now before a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, includes several contentious amendments that are likely to...

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-The Hindu Business Line The wool of this north Karnataka breed has helped the herder community handcraft a crorepati business These sheep, strikingly black, have a rich coat of coarse wool that has long provided the army and police force with a steady supply of warm blankets. Called Deccani, the lambs are sheared twice a year, each of them yielding a little over one kg of raw wool, which is ideal for...