-PTI New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued notice to the Kerala government over alleged deaths of several infants due to malnutrition in Attappadi area of the state. The Rights panel has given six weeks time to the state government to submit a report in this regard. According to an NHRC statement, the commission has issued a notice to Chief Secretary, Kerala after taking suo motu cognisance of an...

-The Hindu   How a country like India can deny payment of minimum wages, she asks For the second time since it was created, Rights activist Aruna Roy has resigned from the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), this time criticising the government for not accepting the council's recommendations on minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), even as she thanked the council's chairperson for the...

-Firstpost.com After the UPA-II released its self-congratulatory 79-page ‘Report card to the People', National Advisory Council (NAC) member and leading social activist Aruna Roy has come down heavily on the government for its poor performance in the social sector. Roy, an instrumental force behind the Right to Information Act, criticised the government for stalling on essential legislations such as the Food Security Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill and the Lokpal Bill. Roy spoke...

-The Hindu     The killings of Mahendra Karma and his colleagues call not for retributive violence but for a deeper reflection on the discontent among the tribals of central India and their dispossession In the summer of 2006, I had a long conversation with Mahendra Karma, the Chhattisgarh Congress leader who was killed in a terror attack by the Naxalites last week. I was not alone - with me were five other members...

-The Telegraph Hyderabad: As Rights groups accused the anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum of atrocities on Chhattisgarh's villagers, its founder Mahendra Karma kept insisting his only aim was to "liberate" the tribals from the rebels' tyranny and propaganda. The future of the government-backed vigilante group, which still survives unofficially despite a Supreme Court order to disband it, now looks bleak after the Maoists killed Congress tribal leader Karma yesterday. The Salwa Judum (whose name...