-Outlook.com The obligation of the police is not only to control crime and maintain peace but to do in an unbiased and even-handed manner, writes Vipul Mudgal A disturbing template of policing is emerging in India: one of selective and disproportionate action against some, deliberate inaction against others and collusion with a section of troublemakers. All these at the cost of neutrality and fair play. If there is something ominous about the...

-The Indian Express What is needed is ‘ease of policing’, better training and infrastructure Common Cause’s recent survey on the Status of Policing in India is said to have affirmed that the black sheep in the police force find nothing wrong with beating up criminals to extract a confession. It is still, however, too judgemental to suggest that torture is endemic to Indian policing, as Maja Daruwala does (‘Exorcising third-degree’, IE,...

-Hindustan Times A study shows glaring gaps in Indian policing — from unfilled quotas of SC/STs to a dip in women officers. The rule of law has two extremes: a failed State and a police State. A failed State loses control over law and order as its monopoly slips over the use of physical force. The latter commands complete control, but ends up abusing State machinery for repression. Both extremes suffer...

-The Indian Express State institutions have been complicit in denying justice to the victim. The Criminal Justice System of the country is “virtually collapsing” and “as it is slow, inefficient and ineffective, people are losing confidence in the system”. This was stated by the Justice Malimath Committee (2000-2003), which had been constituted to recommend reforms in the Criminal Justice System. Thanks to certain lobbies, the salient recommendations of the Committee were...

-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...