-Economic and Political Weekly Strict implementation of NHRC guidelines for investigation into fake “encounters” is a must. The killing of five suspected bank robbers in Chennai on 23 February by police officers tasked with apprehending them looks suspiciously like yet another case of a fake “encounter”. News Reports following the killing have brought out various inconsistencies in the claim of the police that they fired in self-defence.   After directives from the National Human...

Funding agency for rural NGOs may be on its last legs IT IS a government agency that was set up specially to fund non-profits working on rural development. But of late the Council for People’s Action and Advancement of Rural Technology (CAPART) has been plagued by allegations of corruption and inefficiency. After a few failed attempts to reform CAPART, the government has now decided to overhaul the agency which has close...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately order an impartial probe into the role of the Chhattisgarh police in the case of alleged torture of tribal teacher Soni Sori, now detained in the Raipur jail on charges of helping Maoists. It wants proper medical facilities provided to the 35-year-old mother, who was tortured so badly that “...two foreign body [sic] recovered of size 2.5 x 1.5...

-Myeducationtimes.com The 12th Five-Year Plan will be focusing on the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Vatsala Shrangi Reports The 12th Five-Year Plan, which has been delayed and likely to be released by April, is going to focus on the Right to Education (RTE) Act as its central theme. Apart from RTE, the other key areas will include higher education and the setting up of central universities. "The 12th Five-Year Plan is still in...

There is surprise and disquiet in the Urdu journalistic fraternity over the arrest of Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi for his alleged role in the attack on the Israeli diplomat. From a village on the Ghaziabad-Meerut border, Kazmi had a variety of journalistic assignments that included a weekly column and the morning news bulletin on DD Urdu. Since 2002, he also helped as a volunteer teacher of English to underprivileged Class XII students...