-The Telegraph New Delhi: Kerala has become the first state to petition the Supreme Court for a review of its judgment that has been accused of "diluting" the SC/ST Atrocities Act by ruling against automatic arrests and allowing anticipatory bail. The Centre has already sought a review and recall of the March 20 judgment, which has triggered widespread protests and prompted a nationwide shutdown by Dalits on April 2 during which at...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre has finally scrapped its controversial notification on a ban on sale of animals for slaughter in livestock markets and come out with new draft rules doing away with the clause on “restrictions on sale of cattle”. This means cattle, including cows, can be sold in animal markets, even for slaughter wherever it is legal. Last year’s notification had not prohibited slaughter as such, but...

-The Hindu Amid criticism from SC/ST panel, experts say project must continue Now in her late twenties, Veeramma Selvan of Thekkekadampara tribal hamlet in Sholayur gram panchayat of Attappady has reasons to believe that her gods have stopped smiling. It was in January last year that she lost her five-month-old, underweight son Balu — her fourth child — allegedly due to milk aspiration. (a medical condition in which the mother's milk goes...

-The Hindu Only 44% of households in Bihar, U.P. use toilets 100% of the time: survey Kerala and Mizoram top the list of States, with 100% of households which do not practise open defecation, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are at the bottom of the rankings, with less than 44% of such households, The Hindu’s analysis of the raw data generated by a government-commissioned survey finds. Sixty eight per cent of rural households...

-The Indian Express Several commissions were either not functioning or functioning at reduced capacity as posts of Commissioners, including those of Chief Information Commissioners, were vacant during the period under review. A recent study to assess the performance of Information Commissions (ICs) by non-government organisations Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) and Centre for Equity Studies (CES) has found several shortcomings in their functioning, which impact the effectiveness of the Right to Information...