Each night, as temperatures continue to plunge and Delhi shivers through its coldest winter in the last decade, a few more people lose their lives on its streets. The people who succumb to the cold include rickshaw-pullers, balloon-sellers and casual workers, the footloose underclass of dispossessed people who build and service the capital city of the country and yet are forced to sleep under the open sky. They die because...

It is probably the best news for Mumbai's leading builders who had invested thousands of crores of rupees on buying prime plots to develop flats and residences but got stuck in the environment tangle as the land was classified later as forest area. After years of uncertainity, the Supreme Court on Monday cleared their construction activity. However, the green light came with two riders — one they must pay the...

The Supreme Court today directed all state governments to set up juvenile boards, child welfare committees and juvenile police units within six weeks. A bench, headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari, passed the order while hearing a public interest litigation that sought the court’s intervention to deal with child trafficking, which is rampant in the areas bordering Nepal and Bangladesh. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the petitioner, said that juvenile welfare committees...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Delhi government to take immediate steps to provide adequate shelter to the homeless in view of the severe cold wave conditions prevailing in the capital. A bench headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari also asked the government to provide food to the downtrodden as most of the deaths relating to cold were on account of malnourishment. The apex court said the secretary, food and...

The Supreme Court has struck a blow against a menace “as old as human civilisation”, saying courts cannot sanction encroachments even if the land-grabbers are poor. In a ruling last week in a case that went back over 40 years, a two-judge bench said it was “necessary to remember” that no amount of vigil could stop unauthorised occupation of public land by “unscrupulous” elements who “act like vultures”. Justices G.S. Singhvi and...