-PTI The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a PIL seeking to make intelligence agencies IB, RAW and NTRO accountable to Parliament. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir sought response from the Centre and the three intelligence wings for bringing the agencies under the oversight of Parliament and CAG. The bench also asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati to assist it in deciding the PIL filed by...

-The Hindu Eight years ago, the Supreme Court condemned Muhammad Afzal Guru to be hanged for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament House, saying, astonishingly, that “the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender.” Guru was walked to the gallows Saturday morning at the end of the macabre rite governments enact from time to time to propitiate that...

-The Hindustan Times The hanging of the 2001 Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru in Delhi’s Tihar Jail last week evoked a range of diverse emotions. While Guru’s Sopore-based family accused the Union government of not informing them about the execution, the State rejected the charge. A senior Supreme Court lawyer questioned the timing of the execution, saying that the Centre decided to hang Guru at this time because several important assembly...

-Kashmir Times If psychologist Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn't have done better than by insinuating intimate links between corruption and Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes. After warning that he was about to make a "very undignified" and "almost vulgar" statement, "which will shock you", Nandy said: "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...

-The Hindu In a record of sorts, two convicts have been executed in less than 3 months The execution of two convicts on charges of terror in less than three months — a record of sorts in recent times — has unwittingly put the spotlight on President Pranab Mukherjee, who took office last July. His quick rejection of the mercy petitions of Ajmal Kasab, the only survivor among the perpetrators of 26/11,...