-The Indian Express Haryana, a state rocked by a number of rapes of Dalit girls and women over the past month, rape cases have nearly doubled in seven years, according to National Crime Records Bureau figures. And the state manages only one conviction in every eight cases of crime against Dalits, last year’s records show. Rape cases have increased from 386 in 2004 to 733 in 2011, with most years showing a...

-Outlook New Delhi: Congress today blamed BJP-ruled civic bodies for rise in dengue and malaria cases in the city, saying the vector-borne diseases are spreading due to inefficiency of municipalities. Congress legislature party spokesperson Mukesh Sharma accused the three civic bodies of failing to contain spread of the diseases. "The three BJP-ruled civic bodies have been sleeping and are not taking cognisance of the presence of dengue and other water and vector-borne diseases....

-Outlook Amid furore over FDI in multi-brand retail, the politicians and farmers in the leading agrarian state of Punjab are speaking in different voices over the issue. While Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said the concept may be successful in developed countries like USA, he feared that it may not work in this country. "If the FDI comes, big players will eat into the share of small traders and that will be against...

-The Indian Express A group of teachers at Jamia Milia Islamia University has put together a compilation of terror cases that failed to hold up in court, all of these built by the Delhi Police Special Cell around youths they had arrested and described as terrorists. Titled “Framed, Damned and Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell” and compiled from court judgments and media reports, the study by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity...

-The Hindu Ongoing agitation in Kudankulam illustrates how State criminalises popular protest To what extent will the State go to criminalise an agitation, especially a prolonged popular struggle against a project seen by the government as a vital necessity, but as a hazard by the people living in its vicinity? It will charge the protesters with grave offences such as “waging war” and “sedition” regardless of whether there is any basis. The ongoing...