A court judgment delivered earlier this year holds important lessons for those engaged in investigating and fighting terrorism. Questioning the methods of terror investigation is always a challenge because it is so easily seen as defending the enemies of the nation. The exercise is monumentally difficult after a benumbing bomb attack — especially if it has been judged to be the work of a home-grown Islamist organisation. The raging anger at this...

-The Telegraph   A youth in his early twenties was sent to jail for 10 years by a Delhi court today for burning alive his newly wed 18-year-old wife for dowry, a crime the judge compared with terrorism. “In­laws are turning out to be outlaws perpetrating terrorism which destroys the matrimonial home. The terrorist is dowry and it is spreading tentacles in every possible direction,” district judge Sunita Gupta said while sentencing...

The announcement last weekend by the prime minister that an independent National Environmental Appraisal and Monitoring Agency (NEAMA) would shortly be set up has been welcomed in the media. The PM indicates that it would be staffed by professionals, will set up a new process for environmental appraisal of projects, and monitor the observance of environmental management plans. It would be a recommendatory body, subject to final decision-making by the...

Important draft legislation was recently unveiled in Rajasthan that would impose serious punishment for ‘witch-hunting’. Getting legislators to sign off on the bill, however, will prove difficult. Over the years, the women’s movement in Rajasthan has had some success in making violence against women into an important political issue. Activists have forced political parties and governments to demonstrate that they are addressing this constituency, which the media has dubbed ‘Mahila Sangathan’....

-PTI   Delay in appointment of a new judge at the special court trying thefake stamp papers' scam cases involvingAbdul Karim Telgi, has led to the grant of bail to Telgi's manager. "The trial has come to a standstill as the state government has not yet issued notification assigning a court to hear the case," Justice A M Thipsay of the Bombay High Court observed while granting bail to Inam Chaudhary last...