-The Hindu In the Bhullar case, the Supreme Court has created a category of ‘terrorists' among those sentenced to death without providing a constitutional basis for it Writing on extra-judicial killings in the Economic and Political Weekly in March 1996, K.G. Kannabiran narrated a very interesting anecdote from his experience on the Civil Rights Committee appointed by Jayaprakash Narayan to investigate fake encounters orchestrated during the Emergency against naxalites. While interacting with...

-The Hindu     Imprecise estimates of slums in the 2011 census could affect welfare programmes for least privileged groups The recently published census 2011 report on housing stock, amenities and assets in slums, the first of its kind in the country, reassuringly announced that the number of urban slums has declined and the percentage of households in slums has dropped from 23.5 (2001) to 17.4. On the face of it, this reduction appears...

-The Indian Express Chit fund scams shine the light on the need to overhaul the financial regulatory architecture Cases of semi-regulated or unregulated entities making unrealistic promises to consumers are roiling the financial landscape. It is high time the government sees the pattern and undertakes fundamental change. The search for a solution must factor in two realities. The first is the failure of the formal regulated financial system. The breakdown of present...

-Live Mint Manmohan Singh urges on effective decentralization of administrative powers to ensure inclusive growth Acknowledging that India's attempts to devolve power to local self-government units have not been successful, Prime MinisterManmohan Singh on Wednesday urged the effective decentralization of administrative powers to ensure inclusive growth. In a speech to mark the 20th anniversary of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution-notified on 24 April 1993-Singh called on various arms of the...

-Bloomberg The entire land could be handed over by June to Posco, which already has about 1,700 acres in its possession Mumbai: Orissa expects to complete procuring land needed forPosco's steel complex in less than two weeks as farmers relinquish their opposition on the proposed $12 billion project. About 200 acres (81 hectares) out of the total 2,700 acres are left to be acquired from local residents, said Satya Kumar Mallick, the administrative...