-The Times of India   The state chapter of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that is planning a huge rally on January 5 at Nizam College grounds demanded on Tuesday that madrassas (religious schools) in the country be kept out of the purview of the Right to Education Act. Jamiat's state unit president Hafiz Peer Shabbir, who is also a member of the Legislative Council, told mediapersons that the government had not yet evolved a...

The Supreme Court has rejected a five-decade-old perception built on the basis of several reports of Commissions of Inquiry that during communal violence the police were generally biased against minority community and arrested the victims instead of the assailants. "No one can perhaps dispute that in certain cases such aberrations may have taken place. But, we do not think that such instances are enough to denounce or condemn the entire force,...

-The Hindu The G. T. Nanavati–Akshay Mehta judicial inquiry commission probing the Godhra train carnage and the post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 is expected to submit its final report by March 31 next year — 10 years after its formation. This information was given by the State government to a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J. B. Pardiwala here on...

Assailed from all sides, does the UPA really hope to recover its ‘image’ by muzzling online dissent? Kapil Sibal ko gussa kyon aata hai? Butt of online jokes: Politicians in 'tweaked' cinematic avatars. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The UPA government has made it something of a fine art. Hardly had the ruckus over the decision to open up the retail sector to FDI died down than...

The Union minister for communications and information technology, Kapil Sibal, is a knowledgeable lawyer, and someone who is reportedly committed to the freedom of speech. He would not lightly propose regulations that contravene Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) of our Constitution. So how is one to explain his recent proposals on controlling online speech? Or even the immoderate IT Rules that have been in force since April? This controversy...