-NDTV Kolkata: It took nearly two and a half hours for the hearse of Sudipto Gupta, the 22-year-old student activist who died in police custody, to make its way from central Kolkata to the crematorium. Thousands paid tribute to him outside the office of the Students Federation of India, the student wing of the CPI(M), of which Mr Gupta was a member. Grief and anger filled the streets of the city as the...

-The Hindu   High Court has been hearing a petition by non-government organisation After years of harassment from the police and municipal authorities, there is finally some good news for the rickshaw pullers and owners. In compliance with the directions of the Delhi High Court, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on Wednesday announced a special drive for registration of cycle-rickshaws and rickshaw pullers through their Citizen Service Bureaus (CSB). Likewise, the North...

-The Indian Express Chandigarh: Slamming the Punjab government for sponsoring "xenophobia", the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday set aside its "discriminatory" rules, wherein it had allowed additional weightage to rural students for government jobs. A Full Bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta, Ajay Tewari and R N Raina held the rules FRAmed by Punjab as "illegal, unconstitutional" and beyond its "legislative competence". "State sponsored xenophobia is constitutional anathema and the principle...

-The Business Standard Politics means sugarcane gets Maharashtra's scarce water The drought in a large part of Maharashtra, said to be the worst since 1972, may have been triggered by poor rainfall in the last monsoon season - but it has been compounded by mismanagement of the available water. Nearly one-third of the state's population living in the 15 drought-hit districts in and around the Marathwada region is facing a severe scarcity...

-The Hindu Shinde assures MPs that such courts will be set up to expedite trial Amid charges of "innocent" Muslims being falsely implicated in terror cases, the Union government is likely to set up fast track courts to expedite their trial. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde gave the assurance to a group of MPs and civil rights activists who met him to demand a "clear-cut time FRAme" for setting up such courts and freeing...