Barely weeks after firefighting the controversy over a central minister trying to influence an HC judge, former chief justice of India K G Balakrishnan has come under the spotlight again. Demands have emerged from several quarters for a probe into the assets of Balakrishnan's son-in-law, P V Sreenijan, an advocate and a leader of the Youth Congress in Kerala. The move comes in the wake of reports claiming a "baffling increase"...

Over 4,000 Chakma tribal people in Mizoram have been starving for the past few weeks, a non-governmental organisation said Thursday. "Over 800 Chakma tribal families comprising over 4,000 men, women and children in four villages in Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC) areas of southern Mizoram have been starving for several weeks," New Delhi based Mizoram Chakma Development Forum (MCDF) said in a letter to the Mizoram government. MCDF president Hemanta Larma said:...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

Like doctors and lawyers, teachers may soon be subject to a “code of professional ethics”, which includes clauses for disciplinary action over corporal punishment, private tuitions and other “anti-community” activities. If accepted by the government, the proposed code would apply to school teachers across the country, from primary to secondary and senior secondary levels, and across government as well as private schools, with the aim of restoring “dignity and integrity” to...

Mandated to monitor the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is planning social monitoring of the historic law that guarantees elementary education to children in the age group of 6-14. This is the first time that the law separates the implementing agency from the monitoring one. The basic premise of social monitoring is public participation in...