-The Indian Express The time has come for the NHRC and State Human Rights Commissions to proactively recognise, promote and protect HRDs and create an enabling environment for defending human rights. On 28 May 2011, in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh, two activists, Ramesh Agrawal and Harihar Patel, were arrested by the state police. Another activist, Rajesh Tripathi, went underground fearing imminent arrest. The trio, along with others, through their organisations—Jan Chetna...

-Livemint.com Brussels suggested more burdensome, stringent conditions for the permanent solution than what were agreed as part of interim solution in the 2013 Bali summit Geneva: The European Union (EU) has insisted that India must accept a financial cap on market price support programmes if New Delhi wants a permanent solution for the public stockholding programmes for food security at the Nairobi meeting of the World Trade Organization next week, according...

-The Hindu The Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi has announced a slew of measures to address the very poor air quality and pollution in the nation’s capital. It is, in principle, a largely welcome move that could push the needle for anti-pollution measures to be adopted by other Indian cities as well. These are possibly the most significant steps taken after the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas-powered vehicles in the...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Over 300 persons have been prosecuted under Maharashtra's new beef ban law since it was enacted eight months ago. The state government provided this information to the Bombay high court, where it has rejected the claim that people who consume beef constitute a "cultural minority". In its affidavit before a division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and S C Gupte, which is hearing petitions challenging the beef ban,...

-Livemint.com What’s essential for the unique identification number to continue is a strong law. But what should it look like? A key thrust of the 2012 writ petition filed in the Aadhaar case (Puttaswamy versus Union of India) was that the executive action in implementing Aadhaar was unconstitutional in the absence of a law. Later developments in the case, including the government’s argument that there is no fundamental right to privacy, and...