Noted social activist Swami Agnivesh on Saturday appealed to the Chhattisgarh government to initiate talks to solve the problem of Naxalism. The tribal-dominated state is home to a large number of Naxals and is considered their bastion. The chief minister should come forward to solve this decades-old problem through dialogue, he said at a press conference in Raipur in the presence of Chief Minister Raman Singh. Five jawans of the Chhattisgarh Armed...

Fifty-five civil society groups from the U.S., the U.K. and Canada have come together to demand the immediate release of jailed human rights activist Binayak Sen, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chhattisgarh court. They will observe the Martyrs' Day (January 30) as a ‘global day of protest against repression of human rights activists' in India. The coalition has demanded the repeal of draconian laws that give the state arbitrary...

The Indian government should drop sedition cases against rights activists Binayak Sen, Arundhati Roy, and others, the Human Rights Watch said Thursday. The international body has also urged the Indian parliament to repeal the colonial-era sedition law, as it has been used by the authorities to 'silence peaceful political dissent'. The authorities have pursued sedition charges against peaceful activists, despite a Supreme Court ruling that prosecution under the sedition law requires incitement...

Safai karmacharis are set to end their two-decade-long movement for a life of dignity on a victorious note. DECEMBER 31, 2010. As revellers across the world prepare to celebrate the end of the first decade of the new millennium and the start of a new year, a million women across India will be celebrating not the end of a calendar year but the end of a centuries-old degrading and inhuman...

Honour killings are being reported at an unnervingly quick clip, but what escapes attention is the fast and furious increase in numbers of couples seeking protection, fearing for their lives once they decide to marry. Advocates say the Punjab & Haryana high court receives as many as 50 applications a day from couples seeking protection, a staggering ten-fold rise from about 5 to 6 a day five years ago. Such...