-The Telegraph The Centre today told the Supreme Court that no prosecution could be launched against armed forces fighting “counter-insurgency” and sought four months to decide whether to grant sanction to prosecute officers over a 12-year-old alleged fake encounter in Kashmir. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, invoked in “disturbed areas”, specifically mandates prior sanction before any prosecution can begin, the government told the court while replying to a notice on the...

Ten years after the killings in Gujarat, Narendra Modi has neither expressed regret nor has he been held accountable for those mass deaths. Where do we go from here? Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a writer and civil rights activist with the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai.   Just thinking of it, a shiver runs down my spine. I had my own brush with how the Hindutva gangs carried out the...

-The Business Standard Is river interlinking really worthwhile and viable? The Supreme Court’s startling directive to the Centre to set up a “special committee” to expedite river interlinking, which the Court declared was in the “national interest”, has caused the grandiose project to be, once again, closely examined. The idea has been fashionable in fits and starts; it was conceived as far back as the 1970s, and was promoted by the National...

The victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat are still to get justice but are determined to continue the fight. SAIRABEN SANDHI and Rupa Mody sit quietly on the back benches at the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Ahmedabad watching the proceedings in the Zakia Jafri case. Both the women have witnessed immense tragedy. One saw her son killed, while the other has been searching for her missing son for the...

-The Hindu The Madhya Pradesh Vishesh Nyayalaya Adhiniyam (Madhya Pradesh Special Courts Bill) 2011 has received the presidential assent and will come into force on February 15, 2012. The anti-corruption act equips the government with wide-ranging powers to weed out corruption, including the power to confiscate illegally earned properties of corrupt officials and use them as public assets. A similar law is already in force in Bihar. Under the Act, Special Courts dealing...