-The Hindu BJP government’s “alarming” policies draw comparisons with Chinese repression India has become one of the world’s least free democracies, according to a global survey, which warned that “the Indian government’s alarming departures from democratic norms under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could blur the values-based distinction between Beijing and New Delhi.” The Freedom in the World 2020 report ranks India at the 83rd position, along with Timor-Leste and...

-The Indian Express The application questions the reasonableness and objectivity of the criterion of extending the benefits of the CAA to Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan alone. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “intends to file” an Intervention Application in the Supreme Court of India, “seeking to intervene in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1474 of 2019 and praying that she be allowed to...

-The Hindu Nearly 53 lakh adivasi families have not yet received land rights, says tribal leader Khamman (Hyderabad): The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) national convener Jiten Chowdhury charged the BJP-led Central government with infringing on the hard won rights of tribal communities by attempting to dilute the landmark Forest Rights Act (FRA) enacted in 2006. Mr Chowdhury was addressing a public meeting held here on Monday evening to mark the beginning of...

-The Indian Express India’s citizenry is well and truly into a battle for constitutional values, which must be fought, most of all, with non-violent determination and vigour. In the historical scale of rioting, where do the recent Delhi riots belong? And what is their larger political significance? The first question is statistical. During early to mid-1990s, Steven Wilkinson, now teaching at Yale, and I, set up a database for all recorded Hindu-Muslim riots...

-The Hindu Centre has proposed that the next phase of NPR will be conducted along with the first phase of Census between April to September 2020. The Registrar General of India (RGI) has asked all States to “give highest importance, attention and time” to the Census and National Population Register (NPR) work as “the foundations of the statistics of the country” depend on them. In a 14-page letter, dated January 29 and addressed...