With international talks on climate change starting next week in Copenhagen, India staked out its early position on Thursday by announcing that it would slow the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, while also leaving open the possibility of taking bolder steps if an “equitable” deal can be reached during the negotiations. The Indian initiative, presented in Parliament by the country’s top environmental official, means that India has...

On the completion of two decades of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the global community is nowhere close to making this world a better, safer and healthier place for its children. The biggest challenges continue to be in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa where primary health care, education and protection from poverty, diseases, exploitation and abuse are still big problems. In the area of under five mortality ratings,...

Judicial activism has faced several assaults from politicians and bureaucrats ever since the Supreme Court became affirmative. But the sad part is that it has had to also face onslaughts from within. When the public interest litigation movement was in its infancy, a bench of strict constructionists one morning brought up 10 questions that would have choked its growth in coils of conservative interpretation of the Constitution (Sudip Mazumdar vs Union...

The UPA government has come under severe criticism for trying to hurriedly pass the Land Acquisition (amendment) and the Resettlement & Rehabilitation Bill during the ongoing Parliamentary session. Both the bills have been dubbed as anti-poor as their provisions are seen to promote forced dispossession of farmers’ land as well as large scale displacement of rural people. The haste with which the two Bills are being promoted could be assessed...

About 1.7 crore cases were disposed of in 2008 by 14,000 judges in the country, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan said on Wednesday. “About 1.8 crore fresh cases had been filed in courts in 2008, … reflecting a steady increase in the rate of institution of fresh proceedings over the years. Against this, approximately 14,000 judges disposed of 1.7 crore cases in 2008, demonstrating a disposal rate of 1,200...