-TheWire.in The State Human Rights Commission stopped short of announcing action against the army, as it lacked jurisdiction. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s State Human Rights Commission on Monday directed the government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to Farooq Ahmad Dar, the man who was strapped to an army jeep and paraded around villages as a human shield in Kashmir’s Budgam district on April 9. In a five-page order, commission chairperson Justice...

-GovernanceNow.com Banning cattle slaughter, like demonetisation, may deliver political gains but will hit the rural economy hard More than a century ago, a team of officials from Brazil toured some villages of Kheda district, in central Gujarat. They had come to procure breeding bulls of the famous Kankreji breed, notes Bhailal Patel, a charismatic institution-builder who was also the first leader of opposition in Gujarat assembly, in his memoirs. It was of...

-TheWire.in/ IndiaSpend About half the cases of cow-related violence – 32 of 63 – were from states governed by the BJP at the time, eight were run by the Congress and the rest by other parties. Muslims were the target of 51% of violence centered on bovine issues over nearly eight years (2010 to 2017) and comprised 86% of 28 Indians killed in 63 incidents, according to an IndiaSpend content analysis of...

-The Indian Express Nagaland spent highest per day on prisoners at Rs 139.22; Delhi lowest at Rs 31.31 The governments of Delhi, Goa and Maharashtra spent the least per day on three meals given to a prisoner in 2015, much lower than the national average of Rs 52.42, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has shown. With the Bombay High Court recently directing the Maharashtra government to take steps to improve...

-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...