-AP The microfinance industry pursued a path of rapid business growth in recent years; two investigations now link it to debtor suicides   First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, television sets, ration cards and heirloom gold jewellery. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself into a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children. Sometimes, the debt collectors watched nearby. More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of...

Lax policemen made Jharkhand’s borders porous and helped child trafficking, a shocked National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) found on its second day of public hearing here today. In the cases that came to the commission for hearing, it was revealed that the police sat idle and deaf to frantic pleas of people whose minor children went missing. The members of the commission rebuked the state police for being...

The victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat are still to get justice but are determined to continue the fight. SAIRABEN SANDHI and Rupa Mody sit quietly on the back benches at the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Ahmedabad watching the proceedings in the Zakia Jafri case. Both the women have witnessed immense tragedy. One saw her son killed, while the other has been searching for her missing son for the...

There are two serious points of disagreement in the reports of the SIT and the amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran. THE Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate, M.S. Bhatt, on February 15, rejected pleas seeking copies of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team's (SIT) report on the 2002 Gujarat carnage until March 15 on a technicality – that the SIT needs more time to submit its full report along with all documents, evidence and other...

Police officers who have stood up for the truth are made to pay for it. IF there is anyone who can nail the perpetrators of the anti-Muslim riots of 2002 in Gujarat, it is the State's police officers. Witness to the worst communal violence seen in recent times, these officers have first-hand knowledge of the complicity of politicians in the riots and the degree of brutality and negligence of duty that...