-PTI “Don’t dig the well when the house is on fire,” the Supreme Court on Wednesday observed as it warned the Centre of not repeating last year’s “mistakes” in tackling the drought situation in various parts of the country this time. Asking the government to be ready with relief measures for drought in certain parts of country this year, the apex court said: “We are concerned about the approach. You should change...

-The Indian Express The bench pointed out that several districts in the country had received deficient rainfall and a situation like last year could emerge again when delay in declaring drought had affected relief work. The Supreme Court Wednesday warned the Centre against repeating last year’s mistake and asked it to declare a drought condition well in time to tackle the situation better. “We are concerned about the approach. You should change your...

-The Hindu Business Line By allowing children to work in family enterprises, amendments to the Child Labour Act have made them more vulnerable to exploitation. Tracking the issue will be more difficult, writes Preeti Mehra When the two houses of Parliament put their stamp on a few amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 a couple of months ago, they also signed away the dignity of children and the...

-The Indian Express Preventive detention is being routinised as an instrument of state repression The recent preventive detention (PD) of Khurram Parvez, a Kashmiri human rights activist, and Jignesh Mewani, a Dalit leader from Gujarat, has turned the spotlight on the provision of PD and the purposes it is being made to serve. National Crime Records Bureau data released in September 2015 indicate that over 3,200 people were being held in administrative...

Although the number of cases of sedition has come down between 2014 and 2015, more arrests were made in 2015 vis-à-vis 2014, according to a new report from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The NCRB report entitled Crime in India 2015 Statistics reveals that the total number of sedition related cases that occurred in the country was 30 in 2015. The same document shows that the total number of persons...